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Moule,  H.   C.   G.  1841-1920. 
The  old  gospel  for  the  new 
age 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2015 


https://archive.org/details/oldgospelfornewaOOmoul 


The  Old  Gospel 
for  the  New  Age 

And  Other  Sermons 

BY 

PROF.  H.  C.  G.  MOULE,  D.D. 

Norrisian  Professor  of  Divinity;  author  of  "Secret  Prayer  " 
"Commentary  on  Romans,"  etc. 


Fleming  H.  Revell  Company 

Chicago,    New  York   &  Toronto 

Publishers  of   Evangelical  Literature 


COPYRIGHT,  1901 
BY     FLEMING  H 
REVELL  COMPANY 
JULY. 


TO  THE  REVEREND 


CHARLES  ARMSTRONG  FOX, 

INCUMBENT  OF  EATON  CHAPEL,  LONDON. 


Friend  in  the  Lord,  thy  voice  has  lifted  oft 

My  listening  soul  on  paths  of  light  aloft, 

In  church,  in  chamber,  or  where  thousands  met 

In  that  white  tent  by  Derwent's  margin  set. 

Now  for  thy  lot  awhile  thy  God  ordains 

Silence,  and  shadow'd  sight,  and  burthening  pains; 

In  brief,  a  cross  of  crosses ;  yet  (so  fine 

His  art  to  use  e'en  ill  to  ends  divine) 

Ne'er  to  my  spirit's  ear  and  inward  sense 

Spoke  clearer  out  in  thee  His  eloquence. 


PREFATORY  NOTE. 

The  following  Sermons,  it  will  be  seen,  were  preached 
in  several  different  pulpits.  They  range  in  time  over 
several  years.  These  circumstances  will  account  for 
certain  repetitions,  here  and  there,  of  theme  and 
thought,  repetitions  which  might  have  been  removed 
by  rewriting  before  publication.  But  it  seemed  bet- 
ter to  leave  them  as  they  stood,  for  the  topics  which 
have  been  thus  touched  and  retouched  are  of  an  im- 
portance (whatever  view  is  taken  of  them)  which  jus- 
tifies reiteration. 

May  the  true  "Master  of  Assemblies"  be  pleased  to 
use  for  His  glory  whatever  in  this  little  volume  is  of 
His  truth. 

Cambridge,  Easter,  1900. 


CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.    The  Old  Gospel  for  the  New  Age      -      -      -  n 
'He  said  unto  them,  Thus  it  is  written,  and  thus 
it  behoved  Christ  to  suffer,  and  to  rise  from 
the  dead  the  third  day;  and  that  repentance 
and  remission  of  sins  should  be  preached  in 
His  name  among  all  nations,  beginning  at 
Jerusalem.' — Luke  xxiv.  46,  47. 
II.    The  Secret  of  the  Presence  31 
'Thou  shalt  hide  them  in  the  secret  of  Thy  Pres- 
ence.'— Ps.  xxxi.  20. 
'Ill  The  Bright  and  Morning  Star  -      ...  48 
'I   am   the  bright   and   morning   Star.' — Rev. 
xxii.  16. 

IV.    Self-Surrender  and  Its  Possessions — I.     -      -  64 
'Ye  are  not  your  own. — 1  Cor.  vi.  19. 
'All  things  are  yours.' — 1  Cor.  iii.  21. 
V.    Self-Surrender  and  Its  Possessions — II.   -      •  79 
'Ye  are  not  your  own.' — 1  Cor.  vi.  19. 
'All  things  are  yours.' — 1  Cor.  iii.  21. 
VI.    The  Self-Consecration  of  the  Christ      -      -  95 
'Then  said  He,  Lo,  I  have  come  to  do  Thy  will, 

O  God.' — Heb.  x.  9. 
'Then  said  I,  Lo,  I  have  come !  I  delight  to  do 
Thy  will.'— Ps.  xl.  7,  8. 
VII.    The  Individual  and  God      -      -      -      -  -113 
'But  it  is  good  for  me  to  draw  near  to  God.' — Ps. 
lxxiii.  28. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

VIII.    Two  Cambridge  Saints  :  Nicholas  Ridley,  Henry 

Martyn  -  130 

'Whose  faith  follow,  considering  the  end  of  their 
conversation.' — Heb.  xiii.  7. 
IX.  The  Sight  of  Self  and  the  Sight  of  Christ  -  147 
'When  I  saw  Him,  I  fell  at  his  feet  as  dead.  And 
He  laid  His  right  hand  upon  me,  saying  unto 
me,  Fear  not ;  I  am  the  First  and  the  Last :  I 
am  He  that  liveth,  and  was  dead ;  and,  behold, 
I  am  alive  for  evermore,  Amen ;  and  have  the 
keys  of  hell  and  of  death.' — Rev.  i.  17,  18. 

X.    'Lovest  Thou  Me?'  164 

'Jesus  saith  to  Simon  Peter,  Lovest  thou  Me?' — 
John  xxi.  15-17. 
XI.    The  Holy  Spirit  and  the  Love  of  God       -      -  176 
'The  Love  of  God  is  shed  abroad  in  our  hearts, 
by  the  Holy  Ghost  which  is  given  unto  us.' — 
Rom.  v.  5. 

XII.    The  Angel's  Visit  18S 

'I  am  Gabriel,  that  stand  in  the  presence  of  God, 
and  I  am  sent  to  speak  unto  thee.' — Luke  i.  19. 

XIII.  The  Ministry  of  the  New  Covenant        -      -  201 

'Who  also  hath  made  us  able  ministers  of  the 
New  Covenant.' — 2  Cor.  iii.  6. 

XIV.  The  Lord's  Brother  :  the  Son  of  God  -  216 

'I  saw  James,  the  Lord's  brother.   It  pleased  God 
to  reveal  His  Son  in  me.' — Gal.  i.  19;  15,  16. 

XV.    Living  Stones  -      -  224 

'Ye  also,  as  living  stones.' — 1  Pet.  ii.  5. 

XVI.   Heart  Purity  232 

'Blessed  are  the  pure  in  heart.' — Matt.  v.  8. 


PROFESSOR  MOULE. 
BY  W.  ROBERTSON  NICOLL. 

DR.  MOULE  is  the  most  influential  member  of  the  Evan- 
gelical party  in  the  Church  of  England,  but  he  is  besides 
a  teacher  of  all  the  churches.  Dr.  Dale,  towards  the  end  of 
his  life,  in  a  letter  to  his  friend,  Mrs.  Richard  Davies,  of  Tre- 
borth,  wrote :  "Mrs.  Dale  and  I  are  venturing  to  send  you 
Moule  on  the  Romans.  I  am  reading  it  with  great  interest,  and 
I  trust  with  profit.  I  do  not  always  agree  with  him,  but  he  has 
a  deep  knowledge  of  the  things  of  Christ,  and  there  is  some- 
thing contagious  in  his  earnestness.  His  theology  will,  I  sup- 
pose, recall  to  you  the  theology  of  your  own  earlier  years."  It  is 
as  a  devout  and  learned  theologian  that  he  is  generally  known. 
He  has  been,  and  continues  to  be,  a  leader  of  what  is  known 
as  the  Keswick  School.  But  Dr.  Moule  is  a  many-sided  man, 
with  wide  interests  in  literature  and  in  life.  While  tenacious 
of  everything  that  is  vital  in  the  old  Evangelical  theology, 
he  has  a  breadth  of  culture  and  sympathy  which  outsiders 
scarcely  understand.  His  career  at  Cambridge  was  excep- 
tionally distinguished.  He  was  Second  Classic  in  the  Tripos 
of  1864,  Browne's  Classical  Medalist  in  1863,  Fellow  of  Trin- 
ity from  1865-81,  and  Dean  from  1873-6,  and  for  two  years, 
1865-7,  Assistant  Master  at  Marlborough.  He  is  not  only  a 
scholar,  but  a  true  poet.  I  do  not  say  that  this  is  proved  by 
the  fact  that  he  gained  the  Seatonian  Prize  at  Cambridge  six 
times,  but  the  first  thing  I  ever  saw  from  his  pen  was  a  little 
volume  of  verses  which  he  has  not  included  among  the  list  of 
his  works,  but  which  contained  some  true  and  tender  poetry, 
while  the  first  thing  he  ever  published  (in  1865)  was  "Apollo 
at  Pherse:  a  Drama  on  the  Greek  Model."  Even  from  his 
writings  one  might  gather  that  he  has  a  keen  sense  of  humor ; 
and  he  is,  so  far  as  I  know,  the  only  Evengelical  in  the  Church 


5 


6 


PROFESSOR  MOULE. 


of  England  at  present  who  is  a  master  of  English  style.  Some 
of  his  finest  passages  might  be  set  alongside  of  Dean  Church's, 
and  bear  the  comparison  well.  While  he  has  not  spared  him- 
self in  work  primarily  devoted  to  the  edification  of  Christians 
generally,  he  has  found  time  to  show  himself  a  master  in  the 
art  of  exposition.  His  commentaries  on  the  Pauline  Epistles 
rank  with  the  best.  Dr.  Moule,  however,  is  even  more  of  a 
theologian  than  of  an  expositor.  He  has  a  perfect  mastery  of 
the  great  Evangelical  system,  and  knows  how  to  keep  dogma 
in  constant  connection  with  living  Christian  experience.  Noth- 
ing so  good  of  its  kind  as  his  small  but  packed  "Outlines  of 
Christian  Doctrine"  has  been  done  since  Amesius  published 
his  golden  Medulla.  To  hear  Dr.  Moule  one  might  be  in- 
clined to  think  that  by  temperament  his  piety  would  be  a  form 
of  quietism ;  and  certainly  an  element  of  quietism  is  not  absent 
from  his  writing.  But  neither  is  it  absent  from  the  New 
Testament.  I  heard  him  once  pray  for  the  coming  of  the 
Kingdom,  for  the  deliverance  of  the  Church  from  the  dangers 
that  threatened  her.  He  went  on,  "but  let  us  not  be  anxious 
even  about  this." 

Dr.  Moule  was  born  at  Dorchester  in  1841,  the  youngest 
son  of  the  Rev.  H.  Moule,  M.  A.,  Vicar  of  Fordington.  His 
family  is  still  represented  in  the  district,  where  a  visitor  will 
hear  much  of  the  living  and  of  the  dead.  Into  such  particulars, 
however,  I  do  not  propose  to  enter.  Dorchester  has  been 
made  famous  in  English  literature  by  Thomas  Hardy  and 
William  Barnes,  and  both  of  these  came  into  close  connection 
with  the  Moule  family.  I  remember  first  hearing  of  Fording- 
ton when  visiting  the  venerable  poet  William  Barnes  at  Came 
Rectory,  Dorsetshire,  more  than  twenty  years  ago.  Mr.  Moule 
regarded,  and  regards,  his  father  and  mother  with  peculiar 
reverence,  and  all  through  his  writings  there  are  allusions — 
sometimes  direct,  sometimes  indirect — to  the  happy  and  the 
holy  home  where  his  youth  was  spent,  and  where  he  received 
the  convictions  to  which  he  has  never  been  false.  One  of  his 
most  beautiful  poems  was  written  in  1878,  in  Fordington 


PROFESSOR  MOULE. 


7 


Church,  where  Dr.  Moule  was  baptized,  and  where  he  first 
ministered  as  his  father's  curate  : 

"Holy  scene,  and  dear  as  holy, 
Let  me  ponder  thee  this  hour, 
Not  in  aimless  melancholy, 
But  in  quest  of  Heaven-given  power: 
Seeking  here  to  win  anew 
Contrite  love  and  purpose  true; 
Near  the  Font  whose  dew-drops  cold 
Fell  upon  my  brow  of  old ; 
Near  the  well-remember'd  seat 
Set  beside  my  mother's  feet; 
Near  the  Table  where  I  bent 
At  that  earliest  Sacrament. 

Let  me,  through  this  narrow  door, 
Climb  the  Pulpit's  steps  once  more. 
Blessed  place !  the  Master's  Word, 
Child  and  man,  I  hence  have  heard; 
Awful  place !  for  hence,  in  turn, 
I  have  taught,  so  slow  to  learn." 

In  his  admirable  little  work  on  the  "Evangelical  School  in 
the  Church  of  England,"  just  published  by  Messrs.  Nisbet, 
he  says,  speaking  of  the  Simeonite  School,  "My  dear  father 
(1801-80),  if  I  may  be  pardoned  another  personal  allusion  to 
a  memory  evermore  sacred  to  me,  was  a  type  of  that  noble 
generation.  In  his  early  manhood  in  charge  of  a  large  country 
parish,  he  procured  a  confirmation  visit  from  Bishop  Burgess 
of  Salisbury;  the  old  man  cheered  the  younger  in  his  unas- 
sisted efforts  after  thorough  parochial  care,  saying  how  he 
found  everywhere  that  men  of  his  opinions  were  the  active 
promoters  of  schools  and  diligent  teachers  of  the  young  for 
confirmation.  Meanwhile  men  of  these  opinions  were  called, 
like  their  leader  at  Cambridge,  to  not  a  little  trial  in  the  way  of 
social  exile.  The  story  is  well  known  of  the  lady  who  could 
not  be  driven  in  the  Bishop  of  London's  carriage  to  John 


8 


PROFESSOR  MOULE. 


Venn's  rectory  at  Clapham ;  it  would  compromise  the  Bishop ; 
she  must  be  set  down  a  little  way  off,  at  a  tavern,  where 
Venn's  two  sons  went  to  meet  her.  In  1829  a  young  clergy- 
man came  to  begin  work  in  his  Dorsetshire  parish.  His  neigh- 
bors were  not  particularly  sociable;  and  he  learnt  through  a 
friend,  after  a  time,  that  at  a  meet  of  the  hounds  he  had  been 
discussed,  and  pronounced  a  'Methodist,'  on  whom  it  was  not 
necessary  to  call.  But  no  one  of  that  sort,  so  far  as  I  have 
heard,  ever  thought  of  airing  such  troubles  as  a  grievance ; 
they  came  in  the  day's  work  for  God."  Not  that  Mr.  Moule 
was  without  congenial  clerical  neighbors.  His  son  says :  "I 
should  like  to  linger  over  the  recollection,  ever  brighter  and 
dearer  to  me,  of  a  typical  circle  of  the  older  Evangelical  clergy, 
the  former  members  of  the  Dorset  Clerical  Meetings,  men  like 
Henry  Walter,  Charles  Bridges,  Carr  John  Glyn,  Reginald 
Smith,  C.  W.  Bingham,  Augustus  Handley,  Edward  Stuart, 
T.  W.  Berridge,  David  Hogarth,  a  group  whose  manly,  cul- 
tured, unworldly  lives  and  firm  enlightened  faith  presented 
a  spiritual  and  social  phenomenon  which  it  would  be  diffi- 
cult to  surpass  in  its  kind."  It  is  worth  recalling  that  Charles 
Bridges,  of  whom  Dr.  Moule  says  that  the  remembrance  of 
him  "shines  on  me  like  a  ray  reflected  from  the  Chief  Shep- 
herd's face,"  died  at  Hinton  Martell,  in  Dorset,  in  1869.  The 
one  objection  I  should  take  to  Dr.  Moule's  little  book  on  the 
Evangelical  School  is  that  he  does  not  sufficiently  recognize 
the  immense  influence  of  Edward  Bickersteth,  whose  books 
used  to  be  found  in  the  manses  of  Evangelical  ministers  all 
over  Scotland. 

Dr.  Moule's  life  work  has  been  done  as  a  teacher  of  theo- 
logical students.  He  was  the  first  Principal  of  Ridley  Hall, 
Cambridge,  and  occupied  the  position  from  1881  to  1899.  He 
raised  it  to  a  position  of  high  influence  as  the  most  important 
institution  of  its  kind.  Now  he  has  quitted  it  for  the  Nor- 
risian  Professorship  of  Divinity  in  the  University  of  Cam- 
bridge. There  is  every  reason  to  expect  that  Dr.  Moule  will 
now  give  the  Evangelical  party  what  it  so  much  wants,  an  au- 
thoritative and  up-to-date  exposition  of  its  doctrines.  He  is 
understood  to  be  preparing  a  commentary  on  the  Articles.  Of 


PROFESSOR  MOULE. 


9 


Dr.  Moule  as  a  teacher  of  theological  students  one  might  say 
much,  but  it  will  be  best  to  refer  to  his  altogether  charming 
book  entitled  "To  my  Younger  Brethren,"  the  chapter  on 
Pastoral  Life  and  Work.  There  the  heart  of  the  man  is  re- 
vealed. No  one  will  be  surprised  to  find  that  he  puts  in  the 
forefront  as  a  condition  of  ministerial  efficiency,  the  secret  walk 
with  God,  prayer,  and  the  study  of  the  Bible.  Andrew  Bonar 
tells  us  that  in  his  busy  life  he  endeavored  to  keep  two  hours 
every  day  for  actual  prayer,  and  still  was  unsatisfied.  He  said, 
"I  can  do  more  by  praying  than  I  can  do  in  any  other  way." 
In  connection  with  this  Dr.  Moule  lays  great  stress  on  the 
study  of  the  Bible  itself.  He  urges  that  the  Bible  should  be 
read  at  whatever  cost  of  other  religious  reading.  It  is  a 
very  common  thing  to  substitute  practically  for  the  Bible  a 
little  library — Hires  de  piete,  as  the  French  would  call  them, 
small  good  books.  To  the  Higher  Criticism  as  such  he  has 
no  objection.  "The  most  earnest  defender  of  the  supernatural 
character  of  the  Scriptures  may  be,  and  very  often  is,  as  dili- 
gent a  higher  critic  as  the  extremest  anti-supernaturalist." 
But  he  is  very  much  disinclined  to  accept  many  of  the  results 
of  criticism,  opposing  to  them  the  testimony  of  Christ.  Dr. 
Moule  frankly  deals  with  the  clergyman's  relation  to  women, 
warning  curates  against  flirtation  on  the  ground  that  if  at- 
tentions go  beyond  a  certain  line,  while  nothing  but  courtesy 
is  meant,  a  woman's  life  may  be  spoiled.  He  even  urges  his 
men  not  lightly  to  seek  marriage,  not  lightly  to  make  engage- 
ments even  where  they  have  a  good  assurance  that  all  will  be 
spiritually  well,  if  there  is,  a  real  probability  of  a  married  life 
clogged  with  pecuniary  perplexities.  He  thinks  that  there  are 
branches  of  ministerial  work  where  a  single  man  makes  the 
better  minister,  and  says  that  no  true  servant  of  God  will  al- 
low himself  to  think  first  of  an  opening  for  marriage  and 
then  of  an  opening  for  ministry.  In  speaking  of  the  prepa- 
ration of  sermons  Dr.  Moule  is  singularly  silent  about  books. 
He  says  almost  nothing  as  to  the  general  culture  of  the 
preacher  and  the  special  culture,  but  he  is  quite  clear  as  to 
the  necessity  for  good  style.  "A  neat,  straight,  well-worded 
sentence  is  not  a  mere  literary  luxury;  it  is  a  practical  power. 


10 


PROFESSOR  MOULE. 


It  is  far  easier  to  listen  to  than  a  careless,  formless  sentence 
is,  and  is  far  easier  to  remember."  He  commends  Mr.  Spur- 
geon's  style  as  more  perfectly  suited  for  every-day  audiences, 
and  says  that  he  happens  to  know  that  Mr.  Spurgeon  always 
took  great  and  systematic  pains  with  his  English.  Dr.  Moule 
advocates  a  simple,  natural,  and  luminous  division  of  sermons. 

It  need  hardly  be  added  that  the  spirit  in  which  this  great 
Churchman  refers  to  other  communions  is  invariably  large  and 
charitable.  Few  men  know  more  of  the  eminent  Christian 
teachers  outside  the  Church  of  England,  and  he  delights  to 
know  that,  "as  regards  the  Scottish  and  Continental  Churches, 
it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that,  with  the  very  rarest  exceptions, 
English  Church  writers  of  all  schools  regarded  them  as  sister 
Churches  of  the  Reformation  till  about  1830," 


I. 

THE  OLD  GOSPEL  FOR  THE  NEW  AGE 

Preached  in  St.  Bride's  Church,  Fleet  Street,  at  the  Ninety- 
ninth  Anniversary  of  the  Church  Mission- 
ary Society,  May  2,  1898. 

"He  said  unto  them,  Thus  it  is  written,  and  thus  it  behoved 
Christ  to  suffer,  and  to  rise  from  the  dead  the  third  day ;  and 
that  repentance  and  remission  of  sins  should  be  preached  in 
His  name  among  all  nations,  beginning  at  Jerusalem." — Luke 
xxiv.  46,  47. 

The  preacher  called  to  minister  to  you  to-night 
must  needs  feel  his  heart  full  of  the  future.  He  is 
indeed  conscious  also  of  the  past — a  wonderful  past, 
a  nearly  finished  century  of  grace  and  mercy,  and 
of  the  patience  and  faith  of  saints.  How  can  he 
not  be  stirred  by  the  thought  of  those  first  days  of 
our  Church  Missionary  annals,  those  original  acts 
of  simple  but  supernatural  obedience  and  reliance? 
An  unpraised,  unheeded  group  of  pious  men,  our 
founders  met  to  pray  and  to  confer;  they  looked 
out  from  a  threatened  England  upon  a  world  at  war, 
and  they  embraced  the  obligation  to  attempt  from 
England  the  evangelization  of  the  world !  So  began 
the  story  so  familiar  to  us,  and  so  dear,  and  which 
inevitably,  by  laws  of  human  imagination,  claims  a 


11 


12  THE  OLD  GOSPEL  FOR  THE  NEW  AGE. 


peculiar  realization  as  the  landmark  of  a  hundred 
years  aproaches.  It  is  a  retrospect  vastly  various 
under  all  its  unity — a  long  succession  of  suspenses, 
of  fluctuations,  of  glowing  hopes,  of  heart-sickening 
disappointments,  of  magnificent  renewals  of  zeal,  ex- 
pectation, and  advance.  The  first  appeals  to  a  Church 
almost  more  skeptical  than  indifferent;  the  slow 
growth  of  recognition  and  support ;  the  first  sacrifices 
and  triumphs,  in  Western  Africa,  in  New  Zealand, 
in  India  and  Ceylon,  in  Abyssinia,  among  the  north- 
ern Redmen;  the  shocks  and  sorrows  of  the  Niger 
Expedition,  of  the  Sepoy  Mutiny,  of  the  wars  and 
rebellion  of  China,  of  the  wreck  of  the  Maori  race 
and  Church — yes,  and  of  many  a  crisis  of  discour- 
agement at  home :  such  are  some  of  the  features  of 
our  backward  view.  Then,  nearer  to  us  in  time,  we 
behold  an  ever-opening  India,  and  wide  doors  un- 
barred on  a  sudden  in  Japan,  and  the  long  cloud  of 
mystery  swept  from  Eastern  Africa,  and  North- 
western America  silently  transformed  into  a  prov- 
ince of  missionary  bishoprics.  Then  Hannigton 
dies  at  the  gate  of  Uganda,  and  the  "Cambridge 
seven"  make  London  and  England  listen  as  never 
before  to  the  missionary  call.  A  new  departure  is 
manifestly  taken.  It  is  a  new  era  in  point  of  zeal 
and  purpose  and  provision  of  resources  and  offers 
of  service  and  organizaton  of  prayer  and  labor. 


THE  OLD  GOSPEL  FOR  THE  NEW  AGE.  13 


The  believing  Church  among  us  betrays  now  a  con- 
sciousness larger  and  fuller  than  before  that  her 
light  is  given  her  that  she  may  shine;  she  exists  to 
be  her  Lord's  implement  for  the  evangelization  of 
the  world. 

So  our  yesterday  is  strong  in  us,  in  this  place  of 
many  memories,  at  this  solemn  date  of  period  and 
reflection.  Yet  the  future,  immortal  child  of  the 
immortal  past,  its  effect  and  sequel,  its  longed-for 
flower  and  fruit,  is  present  here  in  even  greater 
power.  We  are  met  not  for  reverie  half  so  much  as 
for  resolutions  and  advance.  The  names  of  our 
blessed  fathers  are  dear  to  us,  with  an  indescribable 
sense  of  loyalty  and  honor;  but  we  cherish  that 
sense  not  that  we  may  build  their  cenotaphs,  but 
that  we  may  carry  on  their  work.  'Our  Jubilee  is  a 
commemoration,  but  it  is  much  more  besides;  it  is 
a  summons  afresh  to  the  foot  of  the  atoning  Cross, 
and  a  new  proclamation  there  of  the  power  and 
liberty  of  the  Spirit,  that  we  may  go  out  in  it  before 
our  Lord  to  announce  Him,  the  Liberator,  to  the 
world.  Our  centenary  year  is  a  point  of  sight  for  a 
wider  landscape;  but  not  only  that  we  may  review 
and  estimate  achievements :  much  rather  we  are  look- 
ing forward,  so  far  as  mortal  eyes  can,  into  our 
second  century,  and  the  twentieth  of  our  Lord.  We 
want  to  see  something,  through  whatever  haze,  of 


14  THE  OLD  GOSPEL  FOR  THE  NEW  AGE. 


the  vastness  of  the  land  in  front,  and  how  He  would 
have  us  enter  in,  and  set  our  feet  here,  there,  and 
everywhere  upon  it,  claiming  it  for  Him. 

I  am  only  giving  voice  to  all  your  hearts.  In  the 
three  years'  preparation  for  our  Centenary  nothing 
has  been  more  prominent  than  the  consciousness  of 
the  overwhelming  claims  of  the  future.  In  every 
possible  way  the  Society  has  emphasized  its  resolve 
(to  an  extent  I  had  almost  dared  to  call  excessive) 
to  silence  all  congratulations,  under  the  conviction 
that  the  work  is  only  at  its  threshold,  and  encum- 
bered even  there  with  incalculable  arrears.  It  has 
spoken  as  if  there  were  little  to  utter,  if  anything, 
save  humiliation  for  the  past,  and  penitent  purposes 
for  the  future :  Nil  actum  rcputans,  dum  quid  super- 
esset  agendum.  And  the  "agendum"  is  vast,  and 
the  night  is  coming  down  upon  it,  when  no  man  can 
work ! 

To  be  sure,  the  non-Christian  world  has  been 
lately  traversed  for  the  Gospel  as  never  before. 
Three  main  masses  of  inhabited  territory  alone  now 
remain  practically  untouched — Arabia,  Thibet,  with 
Nepaul  on  its  southern  side,  and  the  great  Soudan. 
But  the  penetration  of  the  world  in  its  breadth  has 
only  made  us  the  more  conscious  of  its  depths.  The 
millions  of  the  unevangelized  earth  have,  as  it  were, 
multiplied  themselves  before  us,  for  we  can  count 


THE  OLD  GOSPEL  FOR  THE  NEW  AGE.  15 


them  better,  and  we  can  realize  them  better,  too,  in 
their  greatness  and  in  their  need.  Along  with  the 
stronger  consciousness  of  their  claim  upon  us  for 
evangelization  there  grows  the  consciousness  that 
the  evangelization  of  such  populations,  and  under 
such  conditions,  is  no  matter  for  forced  marches, 
hurried  inroads  or  feeble  occupations.  It  calls 
for  promptitude  indeed,  in  the  name  of  God.  But 
it  calls  for  patience  and  for  thoroughness  as  well. 
In  brief,  it  sets  before  the  believing  Church  a  task 
scarcely  apprehended  hitherto  in  its  true  propor- 
tions. It  is  a  task  which  fills  the  whole  immediate 
future  with  its  greatness  and  variety,  with  its  awful- 
ness  and  its  hopes ;  an  enterprise  compassable  indeed 
in  Christ,  but  only  compassable  by  a  Church  alto- 
gether wakeful,  "pressing  towards  the  mark,  for- 
getting the  things  which  are  behind,  and  reaching 
forth  to  those  things  which  are  before." 

This  deepening,  gathering  sense  of  the  missionary 
future  embodies  itself  around  us  in  many  methods 
and  movements  full  of  a  new  age.  Within  our 
Society  I  need  but  name  the  still  young  and  growing 
work  of  the  Gleaners'  Union,  with  its  fine  simplicity 
of  plan,  its  ubiquitous  extension,  its  living  network 
of  contact  and  sympathy  and  its  rich  results.  Quite 
outside  our  organization,  yet  touching  and  touched 
by  it  at  innumerable  points,  lies  the  large  sphere  of 


16  THE  OLD  GOSPEL  FOR  THE  NEW  AGE. 


spiritual  influence  whose  center,  in  a  certain  sense, 
is  the  tent  at  Keswick.  From  that  center  to  a  mem- 
orable extent,  notably  within  the  last  ten  years,  the 
misionary  impulse  has  powerfully  vibrated  in  (I 
venture  to  say)  all  the  Reformed  Churches,  and 
most  of  all,  if  I  read  the  facts  aright,  within  our 
own.  In  no  slight  connection  with  this  movement, 
while  going  upon  a  perfectly  independent  line,  the 
Student  Volunteer  Missionary  Union  makes  a  sign 
and  landmark  of  the  times.  It  is  the  spontaneous 
issue  of  a  deep  loyalty  to  the  Lord  in  our  young  edu- 
cated Christendom,  and  as  such  it  is  an  omen  full 
of  the  future  and  of  a  glorious  hope. 

Its  now  well-known  Watchword  is  a  call  energet- 
ically forward — "The  evangelization  of  the  World 
within  this  generation."  In  no  uninformed  or  un- 
considering  spirit  that  watchword  is  explained  by  its 
responsible  advocates.  They  do  not  mean  an  undis- 
ciplined enthusiasm,  nor  the  least  tinge  of  weak 
depreciation  of  long-tried  methods  and  the  glorious 
veterans  of  the  field.  They  mean  no  blind  and  narrow 
indifference  to  the  immovable  claims  of  the  work 
of  God  at  home,  where  never  was  the  call  so  acute, 
so  intense,  so  awful  as  now,  not  for  any  laborers, 
but  for  laborers  true  to  the  heavenly  Word  and  filled 
with  the  Holy  Spirit  of  God.  They  avoid  with 
growing  care  a  certain  tone  of  chiding — I  had 


THE  OLD  GOSPEL  FOR  THE  NEW  AGE.  17 


almost  said  of  scolding — into  missionary  zeal,  which 
has  sometimes  marred  earnest  appeals,  striking  a 
harsh  discord  with  the  blessed  purpose  of  them. 
They  are,  as  I  believe,  aware  of  the  grave  spiritual 
risks  of  an  undue  and  premature  pressure  upon 
young  men  and  women  to  sign  declarations  and 
promises.  They  know  the  need  of  waiting  first  for 
full  light  upon  the  conditions  of  the  work,  upon  the 
whole  range  of  personal  duties,  and  upon  God's 
whole  purpose  for  the  individual  as  shown  in  the 
build  of  character  and  faculty ;  woeful  have  been  the 
mistakes  sometimes  made  under  oblivion  of  that 
need.  But  what  these  youthful  servants  of  God  do 
mean  is  a  deliberate  and  believing  "new  departure" 
in  the  study  of  the  vast  non-Christian  world  as  it  is ; 
and  so,  in  the  realization  of  its  tremendous  need,  and 
so,  in  the  response  of  the  Church  to  the  call  of  the 
Redeemer,  "Whom  shall  we  send,  and  who  will  go 
for  us?"  The  blessing  of  the  Almighty,  in  His 
grace  and  guidance,  be  upon  them! 

So  to  the  future  tend  all  our  hearts.  These  recent 
drifts  and  currents  of  enterprise  and  aspiration  all 
betoken  a  great  passage  forward,  a  period  already 
upon  us  of  large  developments  and  marked  transi- 
tions, the  free  recognition  of  new  conditions,  and  the 
application  to  them  of  methods  often  new  and 
always  ready  for  modification.   True,  this  last  great 


18  THE  OLD  GOSPEL  FOR  THE  NEW  AGE. 


Students'  Movement  has  wisely  and  rightly  dis- 
claimed all  idle  love  of  revolution  for  its  own  sake; 
in  particular  it  has  affirmed  a  full  belief  in  the  high 
value  of  educational  and  of  medical  missions,  meth- 
ods which  have  been  sometimes  assailed  by  a  short- 
sighted criticism.  More,  I  think,  rather  than  less, 
as  time  rolls,  and  thought  as  well  as  faith  develops, 
the  movement  shows  its  true  cohesion  with  the  past. 
But  its  gaze  is  on  the  future;  it  sets  its  feet,  it 
stretches  out  its  hands,  towards  the  time  that  is  to 
be,  the  things  that  are  before.  It  appeals  to  the 
Church  to  be  ready  for  many  a  bold  advance  of 
thought  and  of  action  in  view  of  new  regions,  new 
problems  of  races  and  of  faiths,  new  conditions  of 
both  the  world  and  the  Church,  in  an  age  when  great 
chapters  of  history  are  written  before  our  eyes 
within  the  limits  of  a  month. 

Let  us  be  ready,  in  our  Master's  name,  for  the  fu- 
ture, for  the  new. 

But  now  I  call  you  to  a  line  of  recollection  drawn 
just  the  other  way,  yet  in  strong  connection  with 
this  curve  of  change.  Amidst  all  conceivable  other 
alterations  there  is  that  which  must  be  unalterable 
to  the  end.  Our  beloved  Society  may,  and  must, 
keep  its  mind  open  to  all  the  counsels  which  its 
Lord  may  give  it  through  His  providence.    It  must 


THE  OLD  GOSPEL  FOR  THE  NEW  AGE.  19 


be  prepared,  if  the  need  should  arise  (I  do  not  say 
it  will),  to  deal  in  courageous  independence  with 
many  a  long  tradition  of  method.  But  the  supreme 
question  after  all  is  not  of  method,  but  of  Message. 
And  the  Message,  in  its  sacred  essence,  is  of  "the 
things  which  are,  and  are  to  come."  In  the  twenti- 
eth century  as  in  the  nineteenth,  in  our  second  age 
as  in  our  first,  the  Gospel  of  the  grace  of  God,  the 
Truth  of  sin  and  of  salvation,  the  Word  of  the  Cross 
of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  lives  and  abides  for  ever. 
It  knows,  likes  its  Source,  no  variableness  nor  shad- 
ow of  turning;  to-day  and  to-morrow  it  is  the  same. 

This  is  a  movement  at  which  such  a  reminder  is 
not  out  of  season.  At  a  time  pregnant  of  change 
and  transition  in  many  things  it  is  easy  to  get  an  im- 
pression that  there  must  be  change  in  all  things. 
And  beyond  doubt  the  thought  of  modifications  of 
the  Christian  Message  has  made  itself  abundantly 
felt,  and  felt  in  the  most  various  quarters,  in  our 
day.  There  are  advocates  in  numbers  around  us 
who  would  altogether  difference  what  they  mean  by 
religion  from  what  they  mean  by  theology;  we  are 
to  hold  the  one  off  as  free  as  possible  from  the  other. 
Perhaps  it  is  the  theology  of  the  Evangelical  Re- 
vival ;  perhaps  it  is  the  theology  of  the  Reformation, 
true  ancestor  of  the  other,  and  itself  the  genuine 
heir,  not  only  of  the  first  days  of  the  Faith,  but  of  all 


20  THE  OLD  GOSPEL  FOR  THE  NEW  AGE. 


that  was  noblest  in  the  medieval  schools  as  well; 
perhaps  it  is  the  theology  of  St.  Paul.  Yes,  we  are 
not  to  be  too  submissive  now  even  before  an  Apostle, 
even  before  the  Vessel  of  election,  chosen  to  bear 
the  Name  before  the  nations  and  before  Israel.* 
Religion  is  to  be  disengaged  from  too  close  a  cohe- 
sion here.  The  warm  messages  of  goodwill,  of 
brotherhood,  of  altruistic  sacrifice,  of  instincts  for 
the  unseen  and  the  ideal,  are  not  to  be  always  en- 
cumbered with  the  dogmatic  chain  of  guilt  and  judg- 
ment and  expiation  and  faith  and  a  mystic  new 
creation.  We  are  even  to  beware  of  too  strait  and 
exclusive  a  limitation  within  the  lines  of  a  Nicene 
account  of  the  person  of  the  Man  of  Nazareth. 
Many  have  been  the  manifestations  of  the  Eternal 
and  the  Good.  Does  not  the  Bible  itself  speak  of 
sundry  times  and  divers  manners?  The  mercy  of 
God  is  indeed  in  Christ;  but  is  it  in  Christ  alone? 
Revere  His  character,  carry  out  as  far  as  you  may 
His  precepts,  imbibe  His  spirit;  but  beware  of  too 
positive  a  theology  of  His  origin  and  His  being! 

Other  voices  speak  from  a  place  far,  far  nearer 
the  center  of  the  Gospel,  yet  in  a  tone,  I  dare  to  say, 
never  quite  in  concord  with  the  full  chorus  of  the 
Apostles.  We  are  counseled  by  some  Christians, 
perhaps,  to  remember  the  many-sidedness  of  the 

*  Acts  ix.  15. 


THE  OLD  GOSPEL  FOR  THE  NEW  AGE.  21 


Gospel.  It  was  given  by  its  Lord  for  many  ages 
and  for  many  races.  It  must  be  expected,  in  its 
revolution  upon  its  axis,  to  turn  to  this  age,  and  to 
that,  another  face  than  that  which  their  forerunners 
saw.  It  will  be  found  to  present  to  one  race  another 
range  of  its  truths  than  that  which  regenerated  a 
human  family  lodged  upon  another  hemisphere.  We 
are  to  beware  of  making  always  one  doctrine  the 
central  and  the  radiating  point.  Or,  again,  if  we  do 
so,  we  are  to  see  that  we  centralize  that  truth  which 
alone  can  give  significance  to  all  the  rest,  and  in 
which  lies  already  hidden  all  the  glory,  the  hope,  the 
transfigured  future,  of  man — the  Incarnation  of  the 
Eternal  Word.  To  certain  times,  to  certain  regions, 
another  center,  or  what  may  have  seemed  such,  may 
have  been  fitly  presented ;  but  for  the  world  this  was 
provisional.  Atoning  Sacrifice  is  great,  but  Incar- 
nation is  greater.  What  truth,  what  range  of  truth, 
can  appeal  as  this  can  appeal  to  universal  man,  as 
it  ascends  in  its  majesty  before  him,  and  he  recog- 
nizes in  its  mysterious  splendor  not  only  what  God 
is,  but  what  he  is,  what  Man  is,  that  God  is  mindful 
of  him? 

I  do  not  think  that  I  have  misrepresented  what 
seems  to  me  a  powerful  and  prevalent  element  in 
large  regions  of  Christian  thought  around  us,  and 
God  forbid  I  should  forget  the  strong  relation  of 


22  THE  OLD  GOSPEL  FOR  THE  NEW  AGE. 


that  element  to  unmistakable  and  all-important  data 
of  the  Scriptures.  The  Incarnation — it  is  indeed, 
from  one  great  view-point,  the  fact  of  facts,  the 
royal,  the  imperial  glory  of  all  truth  and  of  all 
spiritual  joy.  None  but  the  Incarnate  Lord  of  the 
Scriptures  and  of  the  Creeds  could  be  to  us  the 
Eternal  Word  from  the  Eternal  Heart,  and  could 
bear  away  from  us  the  immeasurable  burthen  which 
in  the  Fall  we  had  dragged  down  upon  ourselves. 
"When  Thou  tookest  upon  Thee  Man,  to  deliver, 
Thou  didst  not  abhor  the  Virgin's  womb."  "The 
Effulgence  from  the  Father's  Glory,  the  Expression 
of  His  Being,  He  took  part  in  flesh  and  blood,  and 
by  Himself  purged  our  sins,  and  sate  down" — who 
but  the  Incarnate  could  so  labor,  and  then  so  rest? 
— "on  the  right  hand  of  the  Majesty  on  high."* 

But  this  truth  of  all  truths  becomes  another  thing 
when  it  is  taken  apart  from  its  primary  revealed 
occasion  and  purpose  for  our  race.  And  what  I 
humbly  contend  is  that  it  is  so  taken  when  Christian 
thought  treats  it  as  a  Gospel  in  and  by  itself.  It  is 
so  taken  when  we  presume  to  answer  in  the  affirm- 
ative the  unanswerable  question  (unanswerable, 
because  Revelation  is  absolutely  silent  here,  and 
speculation  is  out  of  all  its  rights)  :  Would  Incarna- 
tion have  taken  place,  if  man  had  never  sinned  ?  It 
*  Heb.  i.  3. 


THE  OLD  GOSPEL  FOR  THE  NEW  AGE.  23 


is  so  taken  from  its  true  use  in  general  when  we 
attempt  to  present  an  Evangeliwm  to  any  race,  in 
any  stage  of  development,  in  any  tract  of  time, 
which  does  not  put  into  the  foreground  man's  sin,  in 
its  guilt  (be  this  well  remembered)  as  well  as  in  its 
power,  and  "the  redemption  that  is  in  Christ  Jesus" 
in  all  its  bleeding  glory,  the  atoning  work  of  Gol- 
gotha, the  Sin-bearer  for  the  condemned,  the  Head 
on  which  was  laid  the  iniquity  of  us  all,  the  Propitia- 
tion for  our  sins,  without  whose  blood-shedding  is 
no  remission,  but  "in  whom  we  have  redemption 
through  His  blood,  even  the  remission  of  our  sins." 

Yes,  as  we  prepare  to  travel  into  another  century, 
on  our  way  to  meet  the  Redeemer  at  His  Coming, 
this,  and  nothing  other  nor  less  than  this,  must  be 
the  unfaltering  watchword  of  our  work  and  witness. 
"God  forbid  that  we  should  glory,"  in  any  climate, 
amidst  the  listeners  of  any  race,  "save  in  the  Cross 
of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ" ;  in  that  ancient  and  won- 
derful meaning  of  those  words,  in  which  they  con- 
note the  sinner's  guilt,  the  satisfaction  of  his  Re- 
deemer, our  healing  by  His  stripes,  our  rest  because 
of  His  agonies,  our  welcome  because  of  His  dark 
deserted  hour,  our  justification  by  His  being  "made 
for  us  a  curse,"  our  life,  our  eternal  life,  because  of 
the  unique  and  awful  glory  of  His  most  precious 
Death. 


24  THE  OLD  GOSPEL  FOR  THE  NEW  AGE. 


Immeasurably  more  things  than  this  central 
splendor  are  contained  in  the  Gospel  of  the  Grace 
of  God.  All  the  antecedent  and  unbought  love  of 
the  Eternal  is  in  it;  "for  God  so  loved  the  world 
that  He  gave  His  Only  Begotten."  All  the  living 
glory  of  the  work  of  the  Eternal  Spirit  is  in  it;  for 
"Christ  redeemed  us  from  the  curse  of  the  law,  that 
we  might  receive  the  promise  of  the  Spirit,  through 
faith,"  and  might,  by  that  Spirit,  in  His  power  and 
fulness,  experience  a  rest,  and  liberty,  and  purity, 
and  joy,  and  everlasting  hope,  which  is  heaven  itself 
begun  upon  the  earth.  In  that  Gospel — that  revela- 
tion of  Him  "who  loved  us,  and  gave  Himself  for 
us,"  "who  died  for  us  and  rose  again" — lie  at  once 
the  law  and  the  motive  force  of  a  sacrifice  of  self  for 
others  which  walks  in  simplicity  and  peace  upon 
heights  which  alien  philosophies  and  other  Gospels 
attempt  in  vain  effectually  to  climb.  In  it  lie  sug- 
gestions of  promise,  of  deliverance,  of  blessing,  vast 
as  the  universe  of  creation ;  "the  creation  itself  shall 
be  emancipated  into  the  liberty  of  the  glory  of  the 
sons  of  God."*  But,  for  us  sinners,  these  truths  all 
roll  their  golden  circles  round  the  sun  of  the  Atone- 
ment. The  "innumerable  benefits"  are  all  grouped 
within  the  blood-besprinkled  precinct  of  the  Passion. 
Without  Christ,  who  died  for  our  sins,  and,  having 
*  Rom.  viii.  21. 


THE  OLD  GOSPEL  FOR  THE  NEW  AGE.  25 


died,  is  risen  again,  faith  has  no  foothold,  and  con- 
science no  rest,  and  hope  no  eastern  window,  and 
man  knows  neither  himself  nor  God. 

Once  more,  I  dare  to  affirm  it,  not  only  here  and 
there,  and  at  times,  but  at  all  times  and  in  all  places, 
this  is  the  Gospel.  It  is  this,  it  is  this  alone,  which 
carries  with  it  those  two  contrasted  yet  profoundly 
connected  notes,  that  man  is  tempted  to  be  ashamed 
of  it,  and  that  to  believing  man  it  is  the  power  of 
God  unto  salvation.  It  is  abundantly  possible  to 
construct  a  would-be  Gospel  of  which  it  would  be  as 
easy  not  to  be  ashamed  as  it  is  easy  not  to  be 
ashamed  of  the  Platonic  philosophy,  or  of  the  Kan- 
tian. Into  such  "another  Gospel"  may  be  inserted 
sublime  conceptions  of  God,  and  of  man,  and  breath- 
ings after  an  immaculate  purity,  and  sentiments  of 
universal  sympathy,  and  promises  of  a  golden  fu- 
ture, interminable  and  serene.  But  the  true  Gospel, 
by  its  own  account,  is  a  thing  which  man  tends  to 
be  ashamed  of,  and  which  yet  alone  can  come  to  him, 
and  take  him,  and  lift  him  up  to  God's  own  high 
places.  And  it  is  this  because  it  insists  upon  ap- 
proaching man  as  first  a  sinner,  guilty,  under  sen- 
tence— no  mere  unfortunate,  waylaid  upon  the  by- 
paths of  the  Universe,  fallen  among  thieves — but  a 
criminal,  and  in  the  grasp  of  law. 

Its  purpose  with  him  is  not  benignant  only,  but 


26  THE  OLD  GOSPEL  FOR  THE  NEW  AGE. 


glorious.  It  means  to  do  much  more  than  to  restore 
him  to  himself.  It  will  transfigure  him;  it  will  give 
him  power  to  become  a  son  of  God;  it  will  make 
him  partaker  of  the  divine  Nature;  it  will  seat  him 
in  the  heavenly  places  with  his  Lord.  He  shall 
tread  uport  all  the  power  of  the  enemy,  more  than 
conqueror  through  Him  that  loved  him.  He  shall 
never  die;  he  shall  appear  with  Christ  in  glory;  he 
shall  be  like  Him,  seeing  Him  as  He  is.  But  ante- 
cedent to  all  this,  and  in  direct  order  to  it,  the  Gos- 
pel has  to  deal  with  man  as  not  an  unfortunate,  but  a 
sinner.  It  has  to  stop  his  mouth  of  the  last  falter- 
ing self-justification,  and  to  teach  him  how  to  put 
out  a  mere  mendicant  hand  to  take  a  mere  free  par- 
don, totally  undeserved,  and  so  to  be  welcomed  in 
Another's  Name,  and  henceforth  to  know  no  master, 
and  no  power,  and  no  hope,  beside  Him  who  has 
loved  him  the  unlovely,  and  given  Himself  for  him 
the  guilty. 

And  this  is  what  "the  flesh"  is  ashamed  of.  And 
this  is  the  power  of  God  unto  salvation.  And  this 
is  the  inmost  note  and  difference  of  the  Gospel  for 
the  whole  world,  unalterable  as  the  race  of  man  and 
as  the  Christ  of  God.  So  it  was  in  1799;  so  it  is 
today;  so  it  shall  be  in  the  unknown  twentieth  cen- 
tury, yea,  and  usque  ad  tubani — till  the  trumpet  shall 


THE  OLD  GOSPEL  FOR  THE  NEW  AGE.  27 


sound,  till  the  Lord  shall  come  again,  and  all  the 
saints  with  Him.    Even  so,  come,  Lord  Jesus ! 

If  His  own  words  of  commission  are  indeed  our 
warrant,  so  it  is.  I  have  recited  as  our  text  that 
most  dogmatic  of  His  recorded  instructions  to  His 
Church  after  His  resurrection,  in  view  of  the  evan- 
gelization of  the  world.  The  whole  burden  of  the 
words  is  this — His  dying  work,  His  resurrection 
power,  the  sin  of  man  shown  in  His  light,  the  for- 
giveness of  man  given  for  His  sake :  "Thus  it  is 
written,  that  the  Christ  should  suffer,  and  should 
rise  again,  and  that  repentance" — the  recognition, 
the  confession,  the  forsaking  of  sin — "and  remis- 
sion"— amnesty,  pardon,  welcome,  peace  with  God 
— "should  be  preached  in  His  name."  All  other 
blessings,  but  these  first,  and  in  that  order.  For 
these  He  suffered;  for  these  He  was  exalted.  He 
is  enthroned,  "a  Prince  and  Saviour,  to  give  repent- 
ance and  remission."*  And  this,  not  to  one  race  or 
type  of  manhood  rather  than  to  another.  Semite, 
Hamite,  Turanian,  Aryan — all  have  sinned,  and  all 
must  thus  be  called  and  blessed.  The  message  was 
alike  to  "begin  at  Jerusalem,"  specimen  and  type  of 
whole  regions  of  the  Orient,  and  to  extend  "to  all 
nations"  of  every  continent  and  every  sea. 

As  the  Master,  so  the  servants.    In  the  apostolic 
*  Acts  v.  31. 


28  THE  OLD  GOSPEL  FOR  THE  NEW  AGE. 

writers  we  have  chosen  types  of  character  pro- 
foundly varied.  In  the  regions  and  races  they  ad- 
dress in  speech,  and  in  epistle,  we  have  chosen  sam- 
ples of  the  world.  The  Hebrew  is  there,  and  the 
Athenian,  the  Roman,  the  Levantine,  the  Galatian 
Celt,  the  Phrygian  of  the  remote  Lycus,  enamored 
of  the  theosophy  of  the  remoter  East.  To  them 
messages  are  sent  by  men  as  different  in  cast  of 
character  and  trend  of  thought  as  Paul,  and  Peter, 
and  John.  But  every  messenger  to  every  tribe  and 
mission  sends  a  Gospel  which,  however  rich  and 
varied,  and  locally  adjusted  in  its  circumference,  is 
the  same  thing  at  its  center;  it  is  the  preaching  of 
the  Cross.  "First  of  all,  Christ  died  for  our  sins; 
so  we  preach,  whether  it  were  I  or  they."  "He 
nailed  to  His  Cross  the  handwriting  that  was  against 
us."  "Ye  were  redeemed  with  the  precious  blood 
of  Christ,  the  unspotted  Lamb."  "Christ  was  once 
offered  to  bear  the  sins  of  many."  "We  have  an 
Advocate  with  the  Father,  and  He  is  the  propitiation 
for  our  sins,  and  for  the  sins  of  the  whole  world." 
"Thou  wast  slain,  and  hast  redeemed  us  by  Thy 
blood."* 

"From  error  and  misunderstanding,"  so  runs  the 

Litany  of  the  Moravians,  "from  the  loss  of  our  glory 

*  i  Cor.  xv.  3;  Col.  ii.  14;  1  Pet.  i.  19;  Heb.  ix.  28;  1  John 
ii.  2;  Rev.  v.  9. 


THE  OLD  GOSPEL  FOR  THE  NEW  AGE.  29 


in  Thee,  from  coldness  to  Thy  merits  and  Thy 
death,  preserve  us,  gracious  Lord  and  God." 

Is  this  old  Gospel  of  the  Cross  a  narrow  gospel  ? 
Yes;  just  as  narrow  as  the  gate  and  as  the  way  of 
which  our  Master  spoke  of  old.  Is  it  a  narrow 
Gospel?  No;  in  its  beating  heart,  warm  with  the 
blood  of  the  Atonement,  there  lie,  always  ready  for 
infinite  expansion,  all  the  blessings  for  eternity  and 
for  time  which  were  lodged  for  us  by  the  Father  in 
the  Son,  and  liberated  for  us  by  the  sacrifice  of  His 
death;  for  ever  blessed  be  His  Name! 

In  that  Name  our  missionaries,  "the  messengers 
of  the  Churches,  and  the  glory  of  Christ,"  go  to  all 
the  nations.  They  go  to  teach  them  many  things, 
yea,  "all  things  whatsoever  He  has  commanded." 
They  go  to  gather  and  to  combine,  to  minister  the 
Lord's  ordinances,  to  build  up  men  in  the  Lord's 
Body,  to  equip  His  disciples  for  His  service ;  to  lead 
them  out  into  His  holy  war.  But  first  and  most 
they  go  to  preach,  and  to  glorify,  His  Cross. 

For  themselves  that  Cross,  borne  for  their  own 
salvation,  is  divine  peace  and  power  for  their  suffer- 
ing as  for  their  witness.  "In  that  sign  they  con- 
quer." It  is  their  victory  beneath  the  tropic  sun, 
and  upon  the  arctic  ice,  in  the  long  patience  of  the 


3o  THE  OLD  GOSPEL  FOR  THE  NEW  AGE. 


manifold  plowing  and  sowing,  and  in  the  joys  of 
the  harvest-home  of  souls.  And  it  is  all  in  all  to 
them  when  the  Master  calls  His  beloved  servant 
aside,  and  bids  him  bow  down  and  glorify  God  by 
dying — in  the  shipwreck  on  the  Indian  deep,  amidst 
the  death-damps  of  the  Niger,  by  gun-shot  be- 
side the  lake  of  the  Equator,  by  the  rebel  murderer's 
sword  in  Sierra  Leone. 

***  The  references  at  the  close  are  to  the  deaths  of  mis- 
sionaries :  Mrs.  Smyth.  Archdeacon  Dobinson,  Mr.  G.  L.  Pilk- 
ington,  and  the  Rev.  W.  J.  Humphrey. 


II 


THE  SECRET  OF  THE  PRESENCE 

Preached  in  the  University  Church,  Cambridge 

"Thou  shalt  hide  them  in  the  secret  of  Thy  Presence." — 
Ps.  xxxi.  20. 

And  who  are  "they,"  of  whom  the  prophet  speaketh 
this  ?  Is  it  a  favored  few,  a  selected  and  exempted 
remnant,  whom  the  care  of  the  Eternal  shall  insu- 
late from  the  open  world,  and  remove  into  the 
silence  of  the  forests  or  the  hills  to  contemplate  and 
to  adore?  Is  "the  secret,"  "the  covert,"  some  cur- 
tained or  cloistered  circle  where  the  wicked  cease 
from  troubling,  and  where  there  is  leisure  to  be 
good?  Is  it  a  home  with  God  beyond  the  grave  in 
the  land  far  off,  where  the  righteous  enters  into  the 
peace  and  light  of  immortality,  resting  upon  his 
bed  ?*  Is  the  promise  restricted  to  priests  and  seers 
here,  or  to  the  just  made  perfect  yonder?  No,  it 
is  not  so.  The  last  preceding  words  tell  us  other- 
wise. The  "they"  of  this  golden  oracle  are  all 
those  who  fear  Him,  all  those  who  trust  in  Him. 
*  Isa.  lvii.  2. 
3i 


32     THE  SECRET  OF  THE  PRESENCE. 


The  humblest  spiritual  loyalist  to  God,  the  weakest 
and  the  weariest  and  the  busiest,  who  hides  him- 
self in  Him,  who  commits  the  way  to  Him,  who 
commends  the  spirit  to  Him;  this  hidden  life,  this 
secret  of  the  Presence — it  is  for  even  him. 

And  it  is  for  him  (we  read  again  in  the  preceding 
sentence)  as  fearing  thus,  and  as  trusting  thus, 
"before  the  sons  of  men."  It  is  for  those  who  avow 
the  Lord  as  their  King,  and  venture  upon  His 
promises,  "before  the  sons  of  men."  In  the  thick 
of  human  intercourse,  amidst  the  shock  and  con- 
flicts of  human  change,  under  the  hot  glare  of 
human  observation,  out  of  doors  amidst  the  disso- 
nance of  the  common  day — it  is  there  that  this  won- 
derful promise  of  the  Holy  Ghost  by  the  Psalmist 
is  to  take  effect.  For  so  it  runs,  "O  how  great  is 
Thy  goodness,  which  Thou  hast  laid  up  for  them 
that  fear  Thee;  which  Thou  hast  wrought  for  them 
that  trust  in  Thee  before  the  sons  of  men.  Thou 
shalt  hide  them  in  the  secret  of  Thy  Presence." 

Such  is  the  scope  of  the  promise,  "for  them  that 
fear  Thee,  them  that  trust  in  Thee."  Such  is  the 
place  of  the  promise,  "before  the  sons  of  men." 

I  attempted  last  Sunday*  to  speak  of  that  great 
fact  of  the  Gospel,  the  autocratic  rights  of  our  Lord 

*  The  sermon  referred  to  is  not  included  in  this  volume. 


THE  SECRET  OF  THE  PRESENCE.  33 


Jesus  Christ  over  us,  and  His  call  to  us  for  an 
unconditional  surrender  of  the  whole  of  life  to  Him. 
I  aimed  all  along  to  remind  you  that  the  true 
place  for  such  a  surrender  and  its  issues  is  the  field 
of  common  life,  "the  next  thing,"  "the  duty  that 
lies  near,"  the  circumstances  which  as  a  fact  are 
ours.  Surrender  to  Jesus  Christ  is  not  a  thing  re- 
served for  exciting  occasions  or  artificial  condi- 
tions. It  is  for  the  Christian  man  to-day,  under 
the  environment  of  this  time  present,  in  our  own 
generation,  be  its  obstacles  and  its  problems  what 
they  may,  so  long  as  they  are  not  of  our  choosing, 
but  of  the  will  of  God.  And  now  I  point  you  again 
to  that  familiar  field.  I  invite  you  out,  as  it  were, 
among  the  sons  of  men.  And  I  say,  as  we  survey 
that  scene  of  realities  and  of  trial,  that  there,  even 
there,  is  the  intended  place  not  only  for  a  genuine 
recognition  of  the  rights  of  Jesus  Christ,  but  for 
a  profound  enjoyment  of  His  presence.  That 
bright  secret  is  no  curiosity  for  a  spiritual  museum. 
It  lives  and  moves;  it  is  made  for  use.  It  is  re- 
vealed, it  is  offered,  it  is  given,  to  be  worn  and 
wielded  amidst  the  wear  and  tear  of  all  that  is 
present,  of  all  that  is  practical  around  us  as  we  are. 

Such  is  one  link  between  our  theme  of  last  week 
and  this.  Surrender  and  the  Presence,  the  Lord's 
entire  ownership  over  us  and  His  invitation  to  us  to 


34     THE  SECRET  OF  THE  PRESENCE. 


live  concealed  in  the  Secret  of  His  Presence — these 
both,  according  to  God  in  His  Word,  are  things 
altogether  meant  to  work  and  reign  in  real  life. 
Nor  is  this  the  only  tie  between  these  two  spiritual 
facts.  They  not  only  walk  the  same  path ;  they  are 
locked  there  by  strong  embraces  into  one.  They 
are,  I  may  say,  two  poles  of  one  spiritual  sphere. 
Surrender  is  the  negative  thing  where  the  Presence 
is  the  positive.  Surrender  is  the  man's  turning 
from  himself  to  his  Redeemer,  dropping  in  the  act 
the  base  plunder  of  self-love,  and  stretching  out 
arms  capacious,  because  empty,  towards  Him.  The 
Presence  is  the  Redeemer's  meeting  the  man  with 
the  fulness  of  Himself,  with  the  gift  of  nothing  less 
than  Himself  to  the  creature  who  brings  nothing 
but  necessities  and  submission.  So  the  two  spiritual 
facts  by  their  own  nature  eternally  complement  each 
other.  We  have  all  often  confessed  this,  aye,  and 
ourselves  claimed  to  act  upon  it,  as  we  have  knelt, 
believing  and  receiving,  at  the  Table  of  the  Feast  of 
Christ.  "Here  we  offer  and  present  unto  Thee  our- 
selves, our  souls  and  bodies,  humbly  beseeching 
Thee  that  all  we  may  be  fulfilled,  filled  full,  with 
Thy  grace." 

That  glorious  complex,  Surrender  and  the  Pres- 
ence, is  the  liberty  of  the  life  of  grace  and  its 
inviolable  peace  and  its  ever-springing  power.  In 


THE  SECRET  OF  THE  PRESENCE.  35 


that  supreme  paradox,  the  Gospel,  these  sacred  para- 
doxes have  their  vital  place.  An  absolute  submis- 
sion is  the  secret  of  a  perfect  freedom.  A  super- 
natural peace,  an  inward  dwelling  in  the  divine 
Covert,  is  the  secret  of  a  life  wonderfully  enabled 
for  holy  energy  and  action  along  the  daily  path. 

But  now,  to  look  direct  upon  this  latter,  this  hid- 
ing in  the  secret  of  His  Presence  before  the  sons  of 
men. 

The  promise  is  akin,  as  you  well  know,  to  a  whole 
host  of  promises.  "Thou  wilt  keep  him  in  perfect 
peace  whose  mind  is  stayed  on  Thee" ;  "My  presence 
shall  go  with  thee,  and  I  will  give  thee  rest";  "He 
leadeth  me  beside  the  waters  of  repose" ;  "The  peace 
of  God  which  passeth  all  understanding  shall  keep 
your  hearts" ;  "Peace  I  leave  with  you,  My  peace  I 
give  unto  you ;  in  Me  ye  shall  have  peace" ;  "Come 
unto  Me,  all  ye  that  labor,  and  I  will  rest  you;  ye 
shall  find  rest  unto  your  souls." 

Here  first  observe  the  paradox  of  such  words,  then 
their  promise.  The  paradox  is,  as  I  have  said,  that 
the  Christian  life  is,  on  the  one  hand,  meant  to  know 
no  rest  or  holiday  from  obedience  to  the  law  of 
duty,  from  hourly  "serving  our  generation  in  the 
will  of  God";  yet,  on  the  other  hand,  at  the  very 
heart  of  such  a  life  there  is  always  to  be  this  mys- 


36     THE  SECRET  OF  THE  PRESENCE. 


terious  stillness,  this  secret  place  of  peace.  Not 
from  an  inner  tumult  of  wrestling  energies  is  to 
come  that  life's  true  power,  but  from  this  hidden 
calm.  The  unfatigued  willingness  to  suffer,  to 
sacrifice,  to  labor,  to  sympathize,  to  bestow,  is  to 
leap  continually  from  a  spring  in  itself  as  silent  as 
it  is  profound.  A  life  all  activity  (or  perhaps  all 
suffering)  at  the  circumference,  and  revolving 
amidst  the  tangled  things  of  the  common  hour,  is  yet 
to  move  upon  a  central  point  of  rest — 

"With  inoffensive  pace  that  spinning  sleeps 
On  the  soft  axle." 

The  world,  the  flesh,  the  tempter — all  will  be 
present,  formidable  parts  of  the  Christian's  circum- 
stances ;  but  "Thou  shalt  hide  him  in  the  secret  of 
Thy  Presence."  Thronging  duties  may  press  him 
hard,  but  "Thou  shalt  hide  him  in  the  secret  of  Thy 
Presence."  Sufferings  of  body,  anguish  of  spirit, 
may  strike  upon  the  life.  And  grace  is  no  anaes- 
thetic; the  Christian  is  no  Stoic:  he  is  follower  and 
member  of  the  Lord  of  Bethany  and  of  Gethsemane; 
he  feels:,  he  grieves  indeed;  yet,  "Thou  shalt  hide 
him  in  the  secret  of  Thy  Presence."  Or  look  an- 
other way  altogether.  Take  life  in  its  most  vivid, 
its  most  pleasing  interests  and  occupations.  So 
these  things  lie  for  the  man  in  the  line  of  the  will 
of  God,  and  so  the  man  fears  Him  and  trusts  Him 


THE  SECRET  OF  THE  PRESENCE.  37 


before  the  sons  of  men ;  the  paradox  of  grace  is  that 
in  these  things  also  "Thou  shalt  hide  them  in  the 
secret  of  Thy  Presence." 

It  is  indeed  an  enigma,  as  is  almost  every  other 
great  fact  of  the  religion  of  the  Bible.  But  none 
the  less,  it  is,  it  is  indeed,  a  promise.  "Thou  shalt 
hide  them" ;  "I  will  give  thee  rest" ;  "Ye  shall  find 
rest  unto  your  souls";  "The  peace  of  God  which 
passeth  all  understanding  shall  keep  your  hearts."* 

Those  last  sacred  words,  remember,  are  a  promise. 
We  are  accustomed  to  hear  them  in  another  and 
indeed  a  soul-moving  form.  As  the  hour  of  wor- 
ship closes,  as  the  communicants  prepare  to  leave  the 
precincts  of  the  Table,  when 

"The  feast,  though  not  the  love,  is  past  and  gone," 
then  the  pastor  lets  the  flock  go  with  the  invocation 
upon  them  of  the  peace  of  God.  It  is  an  invocation 
rich  in  significance  and  power.  But  do  not  forget 
that  its  divine  original  in  the  Philippian  Epistle  is 
not  an  invocation,  but  a  precise  and  positive  promise. 
True,  it  is  a  promise  under  conditions — above  all, 
under  the  condition  that  in  everything  we  make 
known  our  requests  to  God.  But  that  granted,  then 
there  follows  nothing  less  than  this  certainty  and 
guarantee:  "The  peace  of  God  shall  keep  your 
hearts."  Need  I  count  it  out  of  place  and  time  here 
*  Phil.  iv.  7. 


38     THE  SECRET  OF  THE  PRESENCE. 


to  point  to  that  strong  future  tense,  that  wonderful 
"shall,"  and  ask  myself,  and  ask  my  brethren,  if  we 
have  proved  it  true  ?  I  will  ask  the  question,  I  will 
humbly  press  it  on  the  soul.  Here  is  the  voice  of 
God,  the  warrant  of  God :  Have  we  made  our  claim 
under  it,  and  found  it  to  mean  what  it  says  ?  Ah,  I 
am  speaking  to  many,  well  I  know,  who  have  so 
done  and  have  so  found.  For  myself,  so  far  as  a 
sinful  man  may  venture  personally  to  affirm,  I  know 
enough  to  dare  to  say  the  ground  is  good,  if  a  man 
use  it  lawfully.  There  is  a  peace  of  God,  able  in- 
deed to  keep,  to  safeguard  the  weakest  and  the  most 
treacherous  heart.  There  is  a  Presence  that  makes 
at  life's  center  a  stillness  pregnant  with  positive  and 
active  blessing.  There  is  a  "fulfilling"  that  can 
counterwork  the  fulness  of  the  thronging  hours  and 
enable  men,  in  the  stress  of  real  life,  to  live  behind 
it  all  with  Jesus  Christ,  while  they  are  all  the  while 
alert  and  attentive  for  the  next  call  of  duty,  and 
the  next.  The  Christian  is  indeed  to  be  ever  seek- 
ing, ever  aspiring  upward,  "not  as  though  he  had 
already  attained."  He  is  to  avoid  as  his  most  deadly 
poison  that  subtle  spiritual  Pharisaism  which  plumes 
itself  upon  a  supposed  advanced  experience,  and  pre- 
sumes to  compare  itself  with  others,  and  hesitates, 
if  but  for  a  moment,  to  prostrate  itself  in  confession 
and  penitence  before  the  awful,  the  blessed  holiness 


THE  SECRET  OF  THE  PRESENCE.  39 


of  God.  But  none  the  less,  the  Christian  is  called 
to  a  great  rest  as  well  as  to  a  great  aspiration.  He 
is  called1  to  a  great  thanksgiving  as  well  as  to  a 
deep  confession.  He  is  called,  he  is  commanded  to 
an  entrance  into  the  peace  of  God.  It  is  not  to  be 
the  habit  of  his  soul  to  say,  or  to  sing,  that  he 
shoidd  be  happy  if  he  could  cast  his  care  on  his  Re- 
deemer, and  sink  in  His  almighty  arms.  It  is  to 
be  his,  on  the  ground  of  all  the  promises,  to  do  it 
and  to  be  at  rest  in  God. 

Conditions  there  are,  indeed,  to  that  great  peace; 
so  we  have  remembered.  But  they  are  conditions 
each  of  them,  in  its  nature,  a  heavenly  blessing. 
There  is  the  condition  of  godly  fear.  There  is  the 
condition  of  humble  trust.  There  is  the  condition 
of  trust  thus  before  the  sons  of  men — let  not  that  be 
forgotten.  There  is  the  condition  of  coming  direct 
to  Jesus  Christ,  to  take  the  yoke  of  His  word  and 
will.  There  is  the  condition  of  looking  unto  Him. 
There  is  the  condition  of  watching  and  of  prayer. 
But  are  these  things  a  complicated  and  a  grievous 
burthen,  a  bundle  of  arbitrary  exactions  ?  They  are 
so  many  forms  only  of  that  one  great  condition  to 
our  finding  what  is  laid  up  for  us  in  our  Lord,  the 
condition  of  coming  into  directest  contact  with  Him- 
self, and  there  abiding.      Such  contact,  in  God's 


40     THE  SECRET  OF  THE  PRESENCE. 


own  order,  liberates  into  the  believing  suppliant  the 
virtues  of  Jesus  Christ.  Not  peace  only,  but  "His 
peace,"  is  given. 

It  is  a  wonderful  thing  to  be  permitted  to  watch 
a  life  which  you  have  reason  to  know  is  hid  in  the 
secret  of  the  Presence  of  the  Lord.  Some  few  years 
ago  I  met  a  good  man,  humble  and  gentle,  a  mis- 
sionary to  Eastern  Africa.  He  abode  in  the  Pres- 
ence. I  could  not  but  see  it.  I  heard  him  tell,  with 
the  eloquence  of  entire  simplicity,  how,  in  the  tropi- 
cal wilderness,  in  the  deep  night,  he  had  waited  for 
and  shot  the  ranging  lion  which  had  long  been  the 
unresisted  terror  of  a  village  clan.  It  could  not  be 
the  will  of  God,  he  reasoned,  that  this  beast  should 
lord  it  over  men;  and  so,  as  it  were  in  the  way  of 
Christian  business,  he  went  forth  and  put  it  to  death. 
And  then  I  watched  that  man,  a  guest  in  my  own 
house,  under  the  very  different  test  of  the  incon- 
venience of  missing  a  train;  and  the  secret  of  the 
Presence  was  as  surely  with  him  then  as  when  he 
had  lain  quietly  down  to  sleep  in  his  tent  on  the 
lonely  field,  to  be  roused  only  by  the  sound  of  the 
lion's  paw  as  it  rent  the  earth  at  the  open  door. 

I  have  marked  the  secret  of  the  Presence  as  it 
ruled  and  triumphed  in  young  lives  around  me  here. 
I  recall  a  conversation  on  the  subject.  It  was  with 
a  friend  and  student  of  my  own,  a  loving  Christian, 


THE  SECRET  OF  THE  PRESENCE.  41 


but  also  an  ardent  and  vigorous  athlete.  Could 
the  peace  of  God  keep  him,  he  wondered  and 
inquired,  when  the  strong  temper  was  ready  to  take 
fire  in  the  rush  and  struggle  of  the  game?  And 
the  answer  came  in  a  quiet,  thankful  word,  three 
days  later:  "Yes,  I  asked  Him;  I  trusted  Him; 
and  He  kept  me  altogether." 

I  have  watched  lives  in  which  the  secret  of  the 
Presence  has  been  drawn  around  mental  studies  and 
competitions.  It  has  made  the  man  care  for  his 
subject  not  less  but  more.  It  has  made  him  not  less 
but  more  intent  to  do  well,  to  do  better,  to  do  best ; 

&\\wi>.  But  it  has  taken 
the  poison  out  of  competition  by  bringing  into 
it  Jesus  Christ.  And  so  has  come  the  honest  aim 
to  win  knowledge  and  to  train  faculty  for  Him, 
and  to  lay  up  just  such  prestige  as  might  perchance 
subserve  His  ends  in  His  disciple's  life.  And 
equally  and  at  the  same  time  it  has  prepared  the 
man's  spirit  for  the  blessed  bitterness  of  disappoint- 
ment. 

The  secret  of  the  Presence  can  assert  itself  in  our 
times,  as  of  old,  in  the  awful  hours  of  life.  It  can 
give  now,  as  long  ago,  to  the  suffering  confessor 
those  divinas  martyrum  consolationcs  which  a  pris- 
oner of  the  Reformation  found,  with  astonished 
joy,  filling  not  another's  soul,  but  his  own,  in  the 


42     THE  SECRET  OF  THE  PRESENCE.  , 


grim  dungeon.  A  few  years  ago,  in  a  mountain 
town  in  the  province  of  Fuh-kien,  in  China,  two 
men,  recent  converts  to  the  Lord,  were  beset  by  a 
furious  mob  and  hung  up  each  to  a  tree,  to  be 
beaten  there  to  death.  The  elder,  a  sturdy  peas- 
ant, who  had  often  pleaded  with  his  neighbors,  even 
to  tears,  for  Christ,  fearing  for  the  firmness  of  his 
younger  friend,  called  out  to  him:  "Do  not  for- 
get Him  who  died  for  us;  do  not  deny  Him." 
"But,  indeed,"  said  the  other,  as  he  very  simply 
told  the  story  soon  after  to  his  friend  and  mine, 
the  Rev.  Robert  Stewart,*  "indeed  he  needed  not  to 
say  it;  the  Holy  Ghost  so  filled  me  that  I  felt  no 
fear  or  trouble."  Rescue  by  a  detachment  of  Chi- 
nese soldiery  came  just  in  time — not  too  soon  to 
have  allowed  the  confessors  fully  to  prove,  not  the 
bitterness  of  death,  but  the  glorious  secret  of  the 
Presence. 

Now,  God  be  thanked  for  conspicuous  spiritual 
miracles  such  as  this  and  such  as  that  great  martyr- 
triumph  not  many  years  agof  in  inner  Africa,  by  the 
shore  of  the  Victoria  Lake,  when  those  young  saints 
of  God  ascended  the  fiery  chariot,  singing  with  loud 
voices  the  praises  of  their  Saviour  upon  their  own 
red  funeral  pile.  His  arm  is  not  shortened  that  it 
cannot  save,  even  in  such  straits  as  these;  the 

*  Afterwards  himself  martyred,  July,  1895.  1 1885. 


THE  SECRET  OF  THE  PRESENCE.  43 


secret  of  His  Presence  is  as  powerful  now  as  when 
it  worked  open  miracle  in  the  Chaldean  furnace. 
But  it  is  often  well  to  turn  from  the  swelling 
thoughts  suggested  by  the  exceptional  and  the 
heroic  in  the  records  of  the  Gospel,  to  the  sober 
questions  of  the  uneventful  lifetime;  to  the  com- 
mon scene  and  the  transfiguring  power  of  the  blessed 
secret  there.  And  as  I  do  so,  a  name,  a  face,  a  pres- 
ence, rises  on  my  soul.  I  see  one  whose  life  for 
long,  long  years  I  watched  indeed  with  microscopic 
nearness.  I  see  a  Christian  woman,  surrendered 
at  all  hours  to  the  never-ceasing  doing  of  the  near- 
est and  least  romantic  duty;  open  on  every  side  to 
every  appeal  for  aid,  for  toil,  for  love;  the  sum- 
mer sunshine  of  the  full  and  busy  home ;  the  friend 
of  every  needing,  every  sinning  life,  in  the  wide, 
poor  parish;  experienced  indeed  in  the  pure  joys 
which  come  to  hearts  that  forget  themselves,  but 
called  again  and  again  to  agonies  of  sorrow.  And 
I  see  this  life,  in  its  radiant  but  unconscious  beauty, 
at  once  and  equally  and  with  a  living  harmony, 
practical  down  to  the  smallest  details,  and  filled 
with  God;  open  to  every  whisper,  to  every  touch, 
that  said  "I  want  you,"  and  hidden,  deep  hidden, 
morning,  noon  and  night,  in  the  secret  of  the  Pres- 
ence. That  life  was  a  long  miracle,  "and  long 
the  track  of  light  it  left  behind  it,"  to  the  praise  of 


44      THE  SECRET  OF  THE  PRESENCE. 


the  glory  of  His  grace  who  shone  out  from  its 
blessed  depths.  Let  me  give  Him  thanks  for  it, 
indeed.  It  is  not  past ;  it  is  not  lost ;  only  hidden  a 
little  deeper  than  before  with  Christ  in  God,  where 

"Yet  once  more  I  trust  to  have 
Full  sight  of  her  in  heaven,  without  restraint." 

In  Christ,  a  son  needs  not  to  say,  Mater,  ave  at  que 
vale.  The  secret  of  the  Presence  includes  both 
worlds  and  folds  them  into  one. 

My  brethren,  as  we  draw  our  meditation  toward 
its  close,  I  revert  to  the  precise  wording  of  my  text : 
"Thou  shalt  hide  them  in  the  secret  of  Thy  Pres- 
ence [b'sether  paneyka],  in  the  covert  of  Thy  Coun- 
tenance." It  is  a  glorious  stroke  of  divine  poetry 
— the  covert,  the  secret,  of  His  countenance.  We 
find  kindred  phrases  elsewhere  in  the  precious  Psal- 
ter— the  shelter  of  the  brooding  Wings  of  the  Eter- 
nal, the  abode  in  His  mighty  Shadow.  But  this 
phrase  stands  out  as  a  peculiar  treasure — "the  secret 
of  Thy  Countenance."  There  is  no  shadow  here; 
it  is  "a  privacy  of  glorious  light."  And  what  a 
light!  It  is  light  that  lives.  It  is  a  photosphere, 
within  which  opens  upon  the  happy  inmate  the  sweet- 
ness and  the  response  of  a  personal,  while  eternal, 
smile.  It  is  not  it,  but  He.  It  is  not  a  sanctuary, 
but  a  Saviour,  and  a  Father  seen  full  in  Him, 


THE  SECRET  OF  THE  PRESENCE.  45 


giving  to  the  soul  nothing  less  than  Himself  indeed 
in  vivid  intercourse.  It  is  the  Lord,  according  to 
that  dear  promise  of  the  Paschal  evening,  coming 
to  manifest  Himself,  and  to  make  His  abode  with 
the  man,  and  to  dwell  in  him,  and  he  in  Him.*  It 
means  the  spirit's  sight  of  Him  that  is  invisible. 
It  means  a  life,  lived  not  in  Christianity  but  in 
Christ,  who  is  our  life. 

And  thus  the  word  takes  us — out  in  the  open, 
out  before  the  sons  of  men  and  amidst  the  strife 
of  tongues — to  the  deep  central  glory  of  the  Gospel, 
that  it  may  be  ours  in  humble,  wondering  posses- 
sion. The  Gospel,  the  eiayyf\toi> — what  is  it  ?  Subordi- 
nate^, it  is  many  things.  It  is  the  revelation  of 
the  redemption  of  our  nature  by  the  work  of  the 
Incarnate  Son  wrought  once  and  forever  for  us.  It 
is  the  message  of  the  unutterable  mercy  of  that 
pardon  which  moved  the  prophet's  awestricken  won- 
der: "Who  is  a  God  like  unto  Thee,  that  pardon- 
eth  iniquity?"-}-  It  is  the  message  of  the  bringing 
of  the  guilty  in  penitent  faith  into  the  sublime  am- 
nesty of  the  Holy  One,  because  of  His  own  gift  of 
His  own  Begotten,  who  died,  the  Just  for  the  un- 
just, the  Propitiation  for  our  sins.  It  is  the  mes- 
sage of  the  more  than  restoration  of  our  fallen  na- 
*John  xiv.  23.  t  Micah  vii.  18. 


46     THE  SECRET  OF  THE  PRESENCE. 


ture  in  our  second  Head.  It  is  the  bringing  of  life 
and  immortality  out  from  shadows  into  the  light.* 
It  is  the  revelation  of  wonderful  possibilities  of 
benefit  and  blessing  for  this  life  present  in  even 
its  temporary  aspects,  ever  since  it  has  been  possible 
to  say  of  all  men,  yea,  of  the  lowest  and  the  worst 
of  human  persons  or  human  tribes,  "for  whom 
Christ  died."  But  the  inmost  glory  of  the  Gospel, 
the  mysterious  central  brightness  of  its  message — 
what  is  it?  It  is  the  giving  by  God  of  Himself 
to  man.  It  is  man's  union,  and  then  communion, 
with  none  other  than  God  in  Christ.  For  this  was 
given  prophecy  and  preparation,  patriarchs  and 
priests  and  kings.  For  this  was  Bethlehem  and 
Nazareth  and  Golgotha  and  Joseph's  Garden  and 
the  Hill  of  the  Ascension  and  the  fiery  shower 
of  Pentecost.  For  this  was  righteousness  imputed 
and  holiness  imparted  and  the  immortal  redemp- 
tion of  our  body  revealed.  Here,  and  no  lower, 
from  our  point  of  sight,  lies  the  final  cause  of  all  the 
saving  process.  It  was  in  order  that  God,  with  in- 
finite Tightness,  and  with  all  the  willingness  of  eter- 
nal love,  might  give  Himself  to  man  and  dwell 
in  man  and  walk  in  him  and  shine  out  from  him, 
in  measure  here,  hereafter  perfectly. 

So  we  will  come  and  take,  for  He  stands  in  act 
*  2  Tim.  i.  10. 


THE  SECRET  OF  THE  PRESENCE.  47 


to  give.  So  it  shall  be  ours  to  say,  in  the  sweet 
English  of  a  Hindoo  Christian  poetess : 

"In  the  secret  of  His  Presence  how  my  soul  delights  to  hide! 
Ah !  how  hallowed  are  the  lessons  that  I  learn  at  Jesus'  side !" 

We  are  invited,  here  and  now,  in  Jesus  Christ,  into 
the  secret  of  the  Countenance  of  God.  To  enter 
there  in  the  blessed  Name  is  not  presumption;  it  is 
submission.  And  the  result,  the  practice — what  will 
it  be?  The  humblest  walk  of  duty;  the  simplest 
and  least  ostentatious,  but  most  genuine  denial  of 
the  life  of  self;  the  daily  up-taking  of  the  unpre- 
tentious cross;  something  always  to  do  or  to  be 
for  others  and  for  the  Lord ;  while  in  it  and  over  it 
and  behind  it  all,  rules  a  peace  which  does  in  sober 
fact  pass  understanding,  keeping  heart  and  thought, 
the  safeguard  of  the  secret  of  the  Countenance  of 
our  King. 


III. 


THE  BRIGHT  AND  MORNING  STAR 

Preached  in  the  University  Church,  Cambridge,  at  the  open- 
ing of  the  Academic  Year. 
"I  am  the  bright  and  morning  Star." — Rev.  xxii.  16. 

This  is  the  last  place  in  Scripture  where  the  glorious 
Saviour  bears  witness  to  Himself.  A  few  lines 
below  He  once  more  promises  to  return :  "Behold, 
I  come  quickly."  But  of  His  own  words  regarding 
His  own  excellence  and  majesty  this  is  the  last: 
"I  am  the  bright  and  morning  Star." 

The  hours  of  the  great  vision  were  almost  over. 
The  Apostle  who  had  walked  with  Jesus  long  ago 
as  His  daily  friend  had  been  entranced  for  awhile 
into  an  experience  of  His  presence  as  He  now 
reigned  in  "the  power  of  an  endless  life";  and  at 
length  the  trance  was  closing.  An  influence  alto- 
gether from  God  had  been  imprinting  on  John's  soul 
the  messages  to  the  Churches  and  the  future  of  the 
Church ;  and  now  at  the  end  the  spiritual  Voice  has 
still  this  work  to  say;  the  Lord  speaks  of  Himself 
once  more.    Perhaps  the  shadows  of  literal  night 

48 


THE  BRIGHT  AND  MORNING  STAR.  49 


were  rolling  from  the  rock  of  Patmos,  and  the  literal 
day-star  shone  out  in  the  region  of  the  dawn.  But, 
however,  the  spiritual  view  and  the  inner  word  were 
all  of  the  light  and  of  the  day — "I  am  the  bright 
and  morning  Star." 

Our  blessed  Lord  speaks  here  in  a  manner  which 
is  all  His  own.  Nothing  is  more  deeply  charac- 
teristic of  His  utterances  from  first  to  last  than 
His  witness  to  Himself.  It  is  one  of  the  main 
phenomena  of  the  Gospel,  most  perplexing  on  the 
theory  of  unbelief,  most  truth-like  on  the  theory  of 
belief,  this  self-witness  of  the  Man  of  humility  and 
sorrows.  Sacred  Exemplar  of  all  that  we  commonly 
call  self-denial,  Jesus  yet  presents  Himself  always 
and  unalterably  in  terms  of  self-assertion,  and  such 
self-assertion  as  must  mean  either  Deity,  however 
in  disguise,  or  a  delusion  (may  He  forgive  the  word 
if  its  mere  mention  is  irreverent),  moral  as  well  as 
mental,  of  infinite  depth.  "I  am  the  Truth;  I  am 
the  Life;  I  am  the  Bread  of  Life;  I  am";*  such  is 
His  tone. 

And  here  we  have  the  same  tone,  perfectly  main- 
tained, as  the  same  voice  speaks  again  from  amidst 
the  realities  of  the  Unseen.  The  imagery,  indeed, 
is  lifted  from  earth  to  heaven.  He  who  is  the  genial 
Vine  and  the  laborious  Shepherd  now  also  reveals 

*John  viii.  58. 


50    THE  BRIGHT  AND  MORNING  STAR. 


Himself  as  the  Star  of  stars  in  a  spiritual  sky.  But 
the  novelty  of  the  glorious  term  only  conveys  the 
truth  which  had  always  stood  in  the  very  front  of 
the  testimony  of  Jesus — the  truth  of  His  own  sacred- 
ness  and  glory;  the  doctrine  that  He,  the  Son  of 
the  Father,  is  the  ultimate  peace  and  hope  and  joy 
of  the  soul  of  man. 

Let  us  inquire  a  little  into  this  divine  utterance. 
Many  treasures  must  lie  hid  in  such  a  testimony  so 
spoken.  Some  of  them,  however  few,  we  may  hope 
to  make  sure  of  as  we  go. 

"I  am  the  Star."  For  the  moment  we  take  the 
sentence  in  this  abbreviated  form,  for  it  will  suggest 
to  us  something  of  the  reason  for  the  use  of  the 
starry  metaphor  at  all.  "I  am  the  Star."  Why  the 
Star  ?  Most  certainly  the  word,  with  all  its  radiant 
beauty,  is  no  mere  flight  of  fancy.  Prophecy,  not 
poetry,  gives  us  these  last  oracles  of  the  Bible.  If 
we  need  a  ready  proof,  we  have  only  to  recall  the 
clause  just  preceding,  "I  am  the  root  and  offspring 
of  David,"  words  which  are  heavy  with  the  golden 
weight  of  prophecy  and  prophetic  history;  part  of 
the  long  testimony  borne  by  Messiah  Himself  to  the 
divine  nature  and  structure  of  those  Scriptures  which 
had,  as  a  matter  of  recorded  and  verifiable  fact,  be- 
gotten the  astonishing  phenomenon  of  the  definite 
expectation  of  His  first  Advent.    In  close  contact 


THE  BRIGHT  AND  MORNING  STAR.  51 

with  that  sentence  occur  the  words  before  us:  "I 
am  the  Star."  Here  also,  then,  is  an  appeal  to  the 
prophets.  And  among  the  prophecies  in  which  stars 
form  the  symbol  there  is  but  one  which  can  be 
thought  to  point  to  Messiah — the  prophecy  of  Ba- 
laam. Balaam,  as  he  heard  "the  words  of  God, 
and  saw  the  vision  of  the  Almighty,"*  had  heard  of 
a  mysterious  Person,  or  at  least  a  mysterious  Power, 
strong  to  conquer  and  to  save,  and  had  seen  the 
prospect  figured  to  his  soul  as  a  Star,  destined  in 
other  days  to  rise  from  the  horizon  of  Israel.  And 
the  belief  of  the  Jewish  Church,  before  and  in  the 
lifetime  of  Jesus,  was  that  the  Star  of  this  old  pre- 
diction was  the  King  Messiah. 

No  doubt  the  import  of  Balaam's  words  has  been 
variously  explained.  No  doubt  the  whole  doctrine 
of  definitely  predictive  inspiration  has  been,  and 
is,  laboriously  denied.  But  do  we  believe  that  these 
words  of  the  Apocalypse  are  themselves  a  divine 
reality?  Do  we  believe  that  both  in,  and  thus 
after,  "the  days  of  His  flesh"  Jesus  undertook  not 
only  to  teach,  but  to  foretell?  And  do  we  believe 
that  He  was,  and  is,  all  that  He  claimed  to  be? 
Then  we  have  passed  the  point  at  which  for  any 
a  priori  reasons  we  can  think  it  seriously  difficult 
*  Num.  xxiv.  4,  17. 


52    THE  BRIGHT  AXD  MORXIXG  STAR. 


to  believe  that  He  had  been  already  foretold,  how- 
ever long  before,  as  the  Star  of  Jacob. 

"I  am  the  Star."  Prophecy,  then,  spoke  of  Mes- 
siah thus.  The  word  indicated  His  kingly  dignity, 
touched  and  glorified  with  the  light  of  Deity,  or 
of  Divinity  at  least.  So  the  Lord  takes  it  up  here. 
He  claims  here  to  be  the  mystic  King,  immortal, 
spiritual,  divine;  the  regal  Conqueror,  quelling  His 
enemies  and  possessing  His  redeemed.  This  is 
what  appears  under  other  forms  in  other  and  earlier 
passages  of  the  Apocalypse.  "He  had  a  name  writ- 
ten, King  of  kings";  the  Lamb  is  "in  the  midst 
of  the  throne,"  which  is  'the  throne  of  God  and 
of  the  Lamb." 

But  now  we  look  further  into  the  text.  It  not 
only  claims  the  ancient  prophecy  for  Jesus  as  the 
King  of  the  new  Israel;  it  expands  that  prophecy, 
and  brings  truth  out  of  truth  from  within  it.  For 
the  Saviour  does  not  only  assert  Himself  to  be  the 
Star,  the  bright  Star;  his  presentation  of  the  glori- 
ous metaphor  has  in  it  something  new  and  special; 
"I  am  the  Morning  Star." 

Why  was  not  the  word  "star"  left  alone  in  the 
utterance?  In  pointing  to  Messiah  as  the  star, 
were  not  the  ideas  of  brilliancy  and  elevation  and 
all  that  is  ethereal  sufficient?  No,  not  sufficient. 
Messiah  Himself  so  qualifies  the  word  by  this  one 


THE  BRIGHT  AND  MORNING  STAR.  53 


wonderful  epithet  as  to  show  Himself  as  not  the 
King  simply,  but  the  King  of  Morning,  around 
whom  gather  and  shall  gather  forever  all  things 
that  belong  to  tenderest  hope  and  youngest  vigor 
and  most  cheerful  aspiration;  such  beginnings  as 
shall  eternally  develop,  shall  never  contract  into 
fixity  nor  decline.  He  claims,  where  He  indeed  is 
King,  to  be  the  secret  of  such  juvenescence  as  noth- 
ing else  can  ever  give  to  the  finite  spirit.  For  His 
Israel  He  claims  to  be  the  ever-blessed  Antithesis  to 
all  that  has  to  do  with  decay  and  ruin,  to  all  the  woes 
and  weakness  of  melancholy,  to  all  "profitless  regrets 
and  longings  vain."  Not  that  He  bids  His  follower 
crush  pain  and  ignore  bereavement  and  forget  the 
past.  But  He  asserts  Himself  the  Master,  the  King 
of  a  future  which  will  far  more  than  make  amends 
for  the  discipline  of  the  present.  And  meanwhile, 
being  the  Eternal  One,  He  is  always  so  present 
with  His  own  as  to  put  them  already  into  vital  con- 
nection with  that  future,  and  to  pour  its  strength 
and  joy  into  their  life  this  hour. 

"I  am  the  Morning  Star."  Such  in  part  is  the 
import  of  this  last  testimony  of  Jesus  to  Himself. 
It  reminds  His  happy  disciple  that  the  beloved  Lord 
is  no  mere  name  of  tender  recollection,  no  dear  relic 
of  a  perished  time,  to  be  drawn  sometimes  in  silence 
from  its  casket  and  clasped  with  the  aching  fond- 


54   THE  BRIGHT  AND  MORNING  STAR. 


ness  and  sprinkled  with  the  hot  tears  of  hopeless 
memory.  He  is  not  Hesperus  who  sets,  but  Phos- 
phorus who  rises,  springing  into  the  sky  through  the 
earliest  dawn;  the  pledge  of  reviving  life  and  grow- 
ing light  and  all  the  energies  and  all  the  pleasures 
of  the  happy  day.  And  the  word  speaks  of  a 
kind  of  joy  for  which  the  open  noon  would  not  be 
so  true  a  simile.  It  suggests  the  joys  of  hope  along 
with  those  of  fruition;  a  happiness  in  which  one 
of  the  deep  elements  is  always  the  thought  of  some- 
thing yet  to  be  revealed;  light  with  more  light  to 
follow,  joy  to  expand  into  further  joy,  as  the  dawn 
passes  into  the  morning  and  then  into  the  day. 

We  have  matter  here,  then,  for  some  thankful 
thoughts  on  the  blessings  of  light  and  happiness 
and  vigor  and  hope  which  are  bound  up  with  the 
true  idea  of  the  religion  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ. 
Here  we  are  reminded  how  remote  from  melancholy 
are  its  principles  and  its  motives.  Here,  indeed,  is 
One  able  to  guide  and  enliven  and  develop  the  whole 
of  existence  for  His  disciple;  not  only  to  prop  his 
dying  head,  but  to  animate  the  fullest  energies  of 
his  strongest  prime;  and  then  again,  able  with  per- 
sistent grace  to  be  His  blessing  to  the  last,  shedding 
a  morning  light  over  the  decline  and  shadows  of 
advancing  years. 


THE  BRIGHT  AND  MORNING  STAR.  55 


Let  us  take  up  some  of  these  aspects  of  the  truth 
of  our  text  and  think  awhile  over  their  details. 

i.  First,  then,  we  are  reminded  here  that,  as  "His 
commandments  are  not  grievous,"  so  the  motives 
He  gives  to  animate  His  loving  follower  to  obedience 
are  not  melancholy.  I  would  not  be  mistaken.  The 
religion  of  Jesus  Christ  is  very  far  from  teaching 
that  "there  is  nothing  in  God  to  dread."  What 
language  can  outdo  the  terror  of  the  warnings  of 
the  Saviour  when  He  speaks  of  what  is,  according 
to  Him,  the  sequel,  the  necessary  sequel,  of  that 
wide  road  on  which  so  many  travel  ?  But  this 
is  not  to  say  that  His  motive  principles  are 
things  of  gloom.  It  is  not  melancholy  that  looks 
direct  at  realities  and  acts  upon  the  view.  It  is 
not  melancholy  to  bid  us  gaze  in  earnest  on  the 
unfathomable  mystery,  which  is  also  the  iron  fact, 
of  sin,  and  tell  us  without  reserve  what  sin  must 
lead  to  in  the  spiritual  nature  of  things.  Not  to 
do  this  would  indeed  be  melancholy,  for  it  would  be 
the  reticence  of  a  dreadful  iron.  But  the  Lord, 
who  speaks  about  the  abyss,  does  so  that  He  may 
speak,  with  infinite  earnestness  and  the  smile  of  His 
own  welcome,  about  the  rescue  and  the  remedy. 
And  that  remedy  is  no  shadowed  secret,  no  nocturnal 
initiation;  it  is  the  morning  light  of  the  knowledge 
of  Himself.   The  life  eternal,  the  destruction  of  the 


56    THE  BRIGHT  AND  MORNING  STAR. 


second  death,  is  the  knowledge  of  Himself;  and  to 
know  Him  is  to  live  in  light  indeed.  It  is  to  touch 
a  sympathy  boundless  alike  in  its  tenderness  and  in 
its  power.  It  is  to  deal  always  and  everywhere  with 
One  who  is  not  poetic  legend,  but  the  central  Rock 
of  history.  He  has  proved  Himself  in  the  fields  of 
fact  to  be  a  reality  forever;  and  He  is  exercising 
at  this  hour  in  Human  experience  a  personal  in- 
fluence too  vast,  too  manifold,  too  peculiar,  to  be 
explained  by  any  mere  memory  of  recorded  and  de- 
parted power. 

He  being  such,  and  such  being  the  knowledge  of 
Him,  what  are  in  brief  His  sacred  principles  for  the 
man  who  seeks  Him  ?  In  their  essence,  simply  these : 
first  to  trust  Him,  then  to  follow  Him.  The  soul 
is  directed  for  its  repose  and  its  life  far  from  sub- 
jective bewilderments  of  thought  to  things  objective 
altogether,  because  altogether  His,  not  ours;  to  the 
blood  of  His  Cross,  to  the  power  of  His  resurrection. 
And  for  its  progress,  for  its  hope,  it  is  directed  still 
outward  from  itself,  because  still  to  Him;  into  the 
ethereal  open  air  of  His  will,  His  possession,  His 
glory.  It  is  called  every  day  and  every  hour  to  a 
surrender  of  itself  to  Him;  to  the  daylight  reality 
of  a  true  self-dedication  to  One  who  does  indeed 
reserve  to  Himself  the  right  to  be  silent  when  He 


THE  BRIGHT  AND  MORNING  STAR.  57 


pleases,  but  who  has  proved  Himself  worthy  of  an 
absolute  trust  in  regard  of  His  perfection  of  wis- 
dom and  power  and  love. 

ii.  Again,  this  glorious  epithet  of  the  Star  of 
Salvation,  this  morning-word,  reminds  us  that  not 
for  a  part  only,  but  for  the  whole  of  the  earthly 
course,  early  as  well  as  late,  late  as  well  as  early, 
Jesus  Christ  is  the  true  light  to  lighten  every  man. 
Not  for  the  sick-room  only  and  for  the  death-bed  is 
His  Gospel  good.  Let  us  often  thank  God  that  it 
is  good  there.  Many  of  us  have  stood  and  watched 
in  the  face  of  others  all  that  can  be  seen  of  death, 
perhaps  while  the  very  "desire  of  our  eyes"  was 
being  taken  from  us* ;  there  we  have  felt  a  little  of 
the  mighty  difference  between  the  moment  before 
death  and  the  moment  after.  Or  perhaps  our  own 
life,  even  in  its  early  prime,  has  hung  in  the  balance, 
and  some  of  "the  powers  of  the  world  to  come" 
have  touched  us  through  the  thin  curtain  of  extrem- 
est  weakness.  One  religion  only  will  do  at  such  a 
time:  the  religion  which  has  really  dealt  with  sin 
and  with  death ;  the  Gospel  of  a  Redeemer  who  has 
willed  to  die  beneath  the  rod  of  His  own  law,  and 
has  risen  again  with  the  keys  of  the  Unseen  forever 
in  His  hand. 

*  Ezek.  xxiv.  16. 


58    THE  BRIGHT  AND  MORNING  STAR. 


"Jesus,  I  cast  myself  on  Thee, 

Mighty  and  merciful  to  save; 
Thou  wilt  go  down  to  death  with  me, 
And  gently  lay  me  in  the  grave." 

There  is  but  one  religion  which  can  make  such 
language  as  this  the  natural  speech  of  its  followers. 
Let  us  be  glad  that  there  is  one. 

But  this  same  religion  is  not  only  the  last  light 
for  dying  eyes :  it  is  the  star  of  the  morning  of  even 
this  lower  life.  There  is  that  in  it — or  rather  in 
Him  who  is  His  own  Religion — which  is,  of  all 
things,  fitted  to  enter  with  harmonious  power  into  all 
the  confiding  joys  of  childhood,  and  into  all  the  wide 
excursions  and  strong  ascents  of  youthful  thought 
and  will.  One  condition  does  the  Lord  propose  to 
the  young  soul,  as  to  all  souls — the  condition  of 
submission  to  Himself.  And  where,  through  His 
grace,  that  condition,  in  its  true  sense,  is  accepted, 
there  an  element  essentially  of  strength  and  gladness 
will  be  found  to  develop  within  the  life;  a  cheerful 
assurance  of  a  companionship  most  warm  and  ten- 
der, because  divine,  of  a  vivid  sympathy  meeting 
every  true  need  of  grief  or  happiness,  of  a  wisdom 
which  concerns  itself  with  every  detail  of  every  day, 
of  an  affection  to  which  the  best  endearments  of 
earth  can  but  point  as  to  their  glorious  archetype. 
And  above  all  this,  and  with  it  all,  there  will  be  the 


THE  BRIGHT  AND  MORNING  STAR.  59 


power  of  the  known  presence  of  an  invisible  but 
awful  purity,  and  of  the  spoken  promise — in  con- 
nection with  that  presence — of  a  final  life  of  death- 
less joy.  And,  without  a  law  of  unbending  holiness 
above  it,  without  an  immortal  hope  before  it,  the 
gladness  of  the  most  youthful  heart  carries,  lurking 
beneath  it,  the  sure  causes  of  gloom  and  failure  and 
melancholy  and  decay. 

Will  my  brethren  who  have  just  entered  on  their 
academic  course  suffer  me,  in  the  sincerity  of  respect- 
ful earnestness,  to  point  this  appeal  direct  to  them? 
Would  you  have  this  new  life  of  yours  rich  beyond 
all  reckoning  in  possible  happiness  and  good  ?  Would 
you  have  it  not  merely  safe,  but  glad,  glad  with  a 
pleasure  which  will  bear  looking  into,  and  fruitful, 
as  it  is  meant  to  be,  of  results  full  of  pleasure  for 
yourselves  and  others  ?  The  sky  for  most  of  you  is 
bright  with  the  morning  of  this  world.  Not  that 
many  have  not  already  tasted  something  of  the  sad- 
ness of  things.  Many  a  man  comes  up  here  for  his 
first  University  term  experienced  already  in  loss  and 
sorrow.  But  these  burthens  in  their  fulness  cannot 
yet  have  come  to  the  most  among  you,  thank  God ! 
and  the  hope  and  joy  of  life  prevail.  Well,  do  you 
really  care  to  perpetuate  hope  and  to  make  joy  im- 
mortal ?  Do  you  care  for  that  which  will  be  in  you 
a  well  of  youth  springing  up  into  the  endless  youth 


6o    THE  BRIGHT  AND  MORNING  STAR. 


of  the  sons  of  the  Resurrection?  Then  assure  your- 
selves of  Jesus  Christ,  who  is  the  Morning  Star. 
Acquaint  yourselves  with  Him  in  that  special  and 
definite  contact  of  faith  which,  finding  Him  to  be 
Saviour,  inevitably  also  apprehends  Him  as  Friend 
and  as  Master.  In  Him  so  known  you  will  find 
that  which  will  lend  an  immortal  brightness  to  all 
other  things  which,  being  pure,  are  capable  of  reflect- 
ing immortality.  You  will  find  in  Him  an  influence 
which  will  intensify  all  just  enjoyment  and  will 
glorify  all  healthful  knowledge  by  connecting  it  with 
things  to  come — an  influence  without  which  nothing 
else — no,  nothing — can  be  safe  from  impurity  and 
decay;  no  social  pleasure,  no  delights  of  reason  or 
imagination,  no  charm  of  letters  or  of  art.  Take 
up  these  things  and  leave  your  Lord  behind,  and  you 
will  be  only  carrying  your  possessions  to  their  bur- 
ial, with  your  face  to  the  region  of  disappointment, 
weariness  and  final  loss.  You  will  be  on  your  way 
to  find  the  "hollowness" — on  these  terms — "of  all 
delight";  to  be  at  length,  above  all  things,  tired  of 
your  own  principles  of  life  and  your  own  tone  of 
thought.  But  take  up  these  things,  as  you  can,  and 
make  sure  of  your  Lord  with  them,  as  you  may ;  re- 
ceive them  and  use  them  for  Him,  and  you  are 
bearing  your  possessions  along  the  path  of  life  and 
light  and  day,  straight  towards  the  rich,  eternal 


THE  BRIGHT  AND  MORNING  STAR.  61 


issues  of  all  the  training,  whether  of  affliction  or 
gladness,  through  which  you  pass  under  the  leading 
of  Him  who  is  the  Morning  Star  of  the  Epiphany 
of  glory. 

iii.  In  a  few  short  years  there  may,  there  must, 
come  over  you  the  sense  of  an  approaching  maturity 
and  fixity  as  to  earthly  conditions  of  life  and  action. 
You  will  find,  soon  or  late,  that,  as  to  this  world, 
your  rate  of  movement  in  work  and  in  enjoyment  is 
no  longer  what  it  was.  But  if,  indeed,  "Christ  dwells 
in  your  hearts  by  faith,"  there  will  be  a  charm  there 
which  will  not  only  console  you  under  the  change, 
but  will  glorify  it  to  you.  As  eternity  approaches 
you  will  more  distinctly  see  the  connexion  between 
it  and  time.  The  appointed  task,  even  under  the 
burthen  of  the  failure  of  outward  power,  will  be 
met  by  you  as  those  only  can  meet  it  who  know  that 
all  things  are  links  in  the  indissoluble  plan  of  an 
eternal  Friend,  and  that  the  veil  is  already  parting 
which  shuts  out  for  a  season  the  open  view  of  the 
perfection  and  acceptability  of  all  His  will. 

Grace  can  work  strange  and  beautiful  contradic- 
tions to  the  natural  decay  of  our  sense  of  enjoyment 
of  external  things.  I  know  of  one  whose  life  had 
been  spent  in  a  city  rich  with  splendid  monuments 
of  the  past,  and  it  had  been  a  life  of  dull  indifference 
to  all  things  noble  and  fair.    But  his  Redeemer  at 


62    THE  BRIGHT  AND  MORNING  STAR. 


length  became  a  reality  to  the  man,  who  then  said 
that  never  before  had  he  seen  the  beauty  and  grand- 
eur of  the  place  where  he  had  lived  so  long.  They 
had  never  truly  come  to  his  perception — till  he  dis- 
covered the  light  of  "the  love  of  God  which  is  in 
Christ  Jesus  our  Lord." 

So  we  have  traced  a  little  way  some  of  the  sug- 
gestions of  this  heavenly  utterance.  We  have  re- 
membered the  divine,  the  dear  Redeemer,  whose 
Gospel  is  the  very  antithesis  and  antidote  to  that 
melancholy  which  is  always  akin  to  perplexity  and 
weakness.  We  have  seen  in  Him  the  true  Secret  for 
a  perfect  security  and  perpetuity  in  the  days  of  life's 
full  vigor,  and  then  as  the  Revealer  of  that  glorious 
continuity  of  time  with  eternity  which  keeps  the  can- 
cer of  despondency  out  of  our  earthly  maturity  and 
decline. 

May  we  not,  in  conclusion,  move  a  step  further, 
and  find  here  a  promise  which  is  concerned  also  im- 
mediately with  the  heavenly  world  itself?  He  who 
here  calls  himself  the  Star  is  elsewhere  called  the 
Sun.*  We  might  think  that  he  speaks  here  as,  in  a 
certain  sense,  His  own  forerunner — the  Firstborn 
from  the  dead,  whose  own  resurrection  is  the  herald- 
ing of  His  own  final  triumph.  But  it  seems  truer 
to  the  analogy  of  His  other  metaphoric  titles  to  view 
*  Mai.  iv.  2. 


THE  BRIGHT  AND  MORNING  STAR.  63 


this  designation  as  belonging  properly  not  to  any 
passing  phase  of  His  majesty,  but  to  its  essence  for 
ever.  What  elsewhere  He  claims  to  be,  that  in  per- 
petuity He  is.  On  the  Throne,  as  truly  as  on  the 
Cross.  He  is  still  the  Lamb.*  In  the  fields  of 
heaven  He  is  still  the  Shepherd,  "leading  His  flock 
to  the  living  fountains  of  water. "f  And  surely 
in  the  upper  skies  He  will  likewise  be  for  ever  the 
Star  of  Morning ;  the  eternal  Pledge  of  a  life  which 
will  be  forever  young,  of  energies  which  will  accu- 
mulate without  end,  of  a  service  before  the  throne 
which  will  always  deepen  in  its  ardor  and  its  tri- 
umph, of  discoveries  in  the  knowledge  of  the  Eternal 
and  His  love  which  will  carry  the  experience  of  the 
Blessed  from  glory  on  to  glory  in  a  succession  which 
can  never  close. 

Avidi  et  semper  pleni,  quod  habent  desiderant. 

"At  Thy  right  hand  there  are  pleasures  for  ever- 
more." 

"Ever  filled  and  ever  seeking,  what  they  have  they  still  desire ; 
Hunger  there  shall  fret  them  never,  nor  satiety  shall  tire; 
Still  enjoying  whilst  aspiring,  in  their  joy  they  still  aspire."t 


*  Rev.  vii.  17.  t  Rev.  vii.  17. 

t  From  the  Latin  of  Damiani  (eleventh  century),  translated 
in  "Chronicles  of  the  Schonberg-Cotta  Family." 


IV 

SELF-SURRENDER  AND  ITS  POSSES- 
SIONS—I 

Preached  in  the  University  Church,  Cambridge,  at  the  opening 
of  the  Academic  Year. 

"Ye  are  not  your  own." — i  Cor.  vi.  19. 
"All  things  are  yours." — 1  Cor.  iii.  21. 

To-day,  and  again  a  week  hence,  I  am  called  to  this 
pulpit  to  address  my  brethren  in  our  Master's  name. 
Some  continuity  between  the  two  occasions  seems 
desirable,  and  we  shall  find  it  in  the  contrasted  mes- 
sages of  my  double  text,  in  its  "not  your  own"  and 
its  "all  things  yours."  I  read  the  two  together  to- 
day, and  shall  do  so  again  next  Sunday ;  we  shall  be 
reminded  thus  that  under  the  contrast,  under  the 
contradiction,  lies  a  strong  connection.  The  "not 
your  own"  and  the  "all  things  yours"  are  not  only 
statements,  both  true,  but  truths  which  act  and  react 
on  one  another,  "unto  life  eternal."  But  we  will 
also,  in  some  sort,  take  the  two  apart  for  study.  To- 
day our  main  attention  shall  be  given  to  "Ye  are  not 
your  own." 

"Ye  are  not  your  own."  And  who  are  "ye"?  All 
bearers  of  the  Christian  name.    First,  of  course,  in 


AND  ITS  POSSESSIONS.— I.  65 


the  immediate  intention  of  the  passage,  the  members 
of  the  mission  Church  at  Corinth,  about  the  year  57 
of  our  Lord ;  but  then  also,  of  course,  all  who  succeed 
them  in  their  Christian  position,  therefore  ourselves 
to-day.  It  is  not  an  inner  and  selected  circle  only ; 
that  is  not  the  thought  here.  There  is  place  indeed, 
momentous  place,  for  that  view  of  things ;  but  that 
place  is  not  here.  To  the  baptized  man  as  such, 
taken  on  his  profession,  to  the  rank  and  file  of  the 
community,  taken  on  their  profession,  as  much  as  to 
the  most  advanced  and  exalted  of  their  leaders  and 
exemplars,  this  word  was  spoken  then,  "Ye  are  not 
your  own."  And  it  is  spoken  so  to-day. 

I  emphasize  this  manifest  fact  in  order  to  be  as 
practical  as  possible  in  approaching,  for  myself  and 
my  brethren,  the  conscience  and  the  will.  Too 
often  we  are  tempted,  perhaps  without  any  explicit 
avowal  to  ourselves  that  we  are  doing  so,  to  relegate 
the  really  searching  demands  of  the  Gospel  to  the 
full  obedience,  not  of  all  Christians,  but  of  some. 
The  most  diverse  religious  tenets  may  give  occasion 
for  such  thoughts,  or  may  seem  to  lend  them  an 
excuse.  They  may  be  colored  by  convictions  upon 
the  divine  election ;  or  they  may  be  connected  with 
a  theory  that  in  Christianity  there  is  an  allowed 
lower  level  for  the  multitude,  and  a  reservation  of 
"counsels  of  perfection"  for  the  few.  But  theory  has 


66 


SELF-SURRENDER 


often  little  or  nothing  to  do  with  the  matter — it  is 
the  subtle  error  of  the  will.  The  man  hesitates  or 
declines  to  own  that  the  claims  of  Jesus  Christ  are 
impartial  upon  all  who  bear  the  Christian  name, 
because,  whatever  his  opinions,  he  does  not  like  the 
claims. 

"What,  then !  Is  this  meant  seriously  and  indeed  ? 
Am  I  only  a  piece  of  personal  property  after  all? 
I  am  quite  ready  to  own  an  environment  of  obligation 
around  me.  I  have  no  wish  to  revolt,  certainly  not 
theoretically  to  revolt,  against  a  large  range  of  du- 
ties which  I  acknowledge  as  much  as  you  do — duties 
of  truthfulness,  duties  of  human  kindness,  duties  of 
reverence  and  worship  toward  the  Unseen.  I  rec- 
ognize the  fact  and  mystery  of  7  ought'  in  many 
matters  outside  these.  I  do  not  claim  to  float  in 
vacuo,  and  to  live  merely  at  my  pleasure,  as  regards 
the  use  of  my  time  and  of  my  money,  and  the  disci- 
pline of  my  mind,  with  a  view  to  an  employment 
of  it  for  which  somehow  I  am  responsible.  To  be, 
so  to  speak,  a  constitutional  subject  under  a  moder- 
ate government  of  duty,  reasonably  to  consider  other 
people  in  the  concrete,  and  to  own  myself  in  a  gen- 
eral way  responsible  in  the  abstract — this  is  as  it 
should  be.  But  you  tell  me  much  more  than  this. 
You  affirm  that  I,  not  only  my  surroundings  and 
certain  relations  and  obligations  which  they  generate, 


AND  ITS  POSSESSIONS.— I.  67 


but  I,  am  'not  my  own.7  I  am  willing,  standing  at 
the  center,  to  treat  with  respect  the  circumference 
and  its  contents.  But  your  words  invade  the  center ; 
they  seize  on  me,  they  dare  to  describe  me  as  a  pur- 
chase, as  a  possession,  as  the  implement  of  another's 
centripetal  will.  They  label  me  a  bondman,  a  slave — 
abhorrent  word! — no  free  contracting  party  who 
may,  and  who  will,  be  loyal  within  his  rights,  but 
one  who  has  no  rights  at  all,  in  respect  of  his  being 
not  his  own.  If  you  mean  what  you  say,  you  mean 
for  me  immensely  much.  You  throw  the  lien  of  this 
tremendous  ownership  over  my  whole  being,  over 
my  whole  time,  over  my  whole  possessions.  The 
logic  of  such  claims  goes  inexorably  far.  If  I  am 
purchased,  all  that  is  contingent  upon  me  goes  with 
the  bargain.  The  slave  of  old  could  own  nothing, 
for  he  was  owned ;  his  clothes  and  tools,  as  well  as 
his  body,  belonged  absolutely  to  his  buyer.  So,  ac- 
cording to  you,  all  that  goes  with  me,  all  that  is 
thrown  in  along  with  me,  is  not  my  own ;  for  /  am 
torn  from  my  center,  and  given  over  in  to  to  to  an- 
other's hands.  It  is  a  hard  saying;  who  can  hear  it?" 

My  brethren,  I  have  attempted  to  report,  as  it 
were,  the  protests,  perhaps  the  avowed  and  energetic 
protests,  of  many  a  human  heart.  I  am  supposing, 
not  what  we  should  popularly  call  a  bad  case.  This 
is  not  a  man  definitely  resolved  on  wrong,  or  stupidly 


68 


SELF-SURRENDER 


insensible  to  the  cry  of  conscience — a  life  which  has 
"altogether  broken  the  yoke  and  burst  the  bonds." 
Here  rather  is  one  who  would  claim,  and  justly, 
much  of  our  respect  and  our  regard.  It  is  a  char- 
acter largely  attentive  to  common  duties,  perhaps 
strongly  attached  to  the  high  idea  of  duty  in  a  cer- 
tain valuable  degree;  a  life  from  which  we  might 
conceivably  draw  useful  and  even  inspiring  sugges- 
tions, as  we  watch  the  probity  and  the  kindliness, 
and  listen  to  the  honest  utterances  of  good-sense 
and  generous  feeling.  But  even  in  face  of  such  a 
life,  I  do  claim,  not  the  less  but  the  more  because  of 
its  conditions  and  of  its  protests,  that  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ  and  His  Apostles  altogether  refuse  to 
rest  content  with  the  position.  They  do  affirm — 
He  does  affirm — that  this  man,  all  the  while,  is,  in 
fact,  not  his  own;  he  is  "bought,  with  a  price."  They 
do  say  that  "Christ  died,  and  rose,  and  revived," 
not  only  to  shower  upon  this  man  benignant  gifts,  as 
indeed  He  did,  but  also  to  be  his  autocratic  Lord, 
whether  he  is  dead  or  living.  They  do  uncompro- 
misingly inform  him  that  his  true  position,  in  respect 
of  his  Redeemer,  includes  in  it — deep  within  it,  at  its 
center,  at  its  heart — the  relation  of  the  implement 
to  the  artificer,  of  the  bondman  to  the  owner,  of  the 
limb  to  the  will.  They  will  not  let  him  rest  in  a 
dream  of  constitutional  and  contracting  loyalty. 


AND  ITS  POSSESSIONS.— I.  69 


They  tell  him  that  he  is  not  his  own,  and  they  make 
it  plain  to  him  in  a  hundred  ways  that  if  the  fact 
stands  thus  (and  the  Cross  and  the  Resurrection  are 
their  immediate  evidence  that  it  does),  then  the  only 
ultimate  and  adequate  rest  and  Tightness  for  the 
man  is  to  assent  and  consent  cordially  to  the  fact. 
Is  the  branch  for  the  tree?  Its  life  and  freedom  lie 
in  its  absolute  cohesion.  Is  the  limb  for  the  body? 
Dislocate  it,  and  it  is  in  misery;  amputate  it,  and  it 
is  in  corruption.  Set  it,  and  let  it  be  employed  in  its 
articulated  subjection;  it  lives,  it  glows,  it  plays,  as 
it  works,  in  a  perfect  life. 

"/  belong."  This  is  one  of  the  great  primal  watch- 
words of  the  Christian  life.  May  they  not  all  be 
reduced  in  the  last  resort  to  two — "I  believe,  I  be- 
long"? "I  believe,"  receiving  my  Redeemer  in  His 
love  and  glory;  "I  belong,"  giving  myself  to  Him. 
Omit  the  one,  omit  the  other,  and  you  have  a  half 
Christianity — "another  Gospel,  which  is  not  an- 
other." Confess  them  both,  in  the  presence  of  God, 
and  before  the  face  of  man  in  the  realities  of  life, 
and  Christ  shall  form  Himself  and  shall  glorify 
Himself  in  you. 

We  have  already  begun  to  remind  ourselves,  with 
that  sort  of  reminder  which  only  puts  into  order  the 
well-known  contents  of  the  mind,  that  the  stern 
watchword  is,  after  all,  pregnant  of  liberty  and  rest ; 


70 


SELF-SURRENDER 


for  we  have  already  been  passing  from  the  thought 
of  who  he  is  who  is  not  his  own,  into  the  recollec- 
tion of  who  He  is  whose  own  He  is.  We  might 
have  lingered  longer  upon  the  other  aspects.  It 
might  have  been  well,  did  time  serve  us,  to  spread 
out  much  larger,  and  think  over  much  more  in  de- 
tail the  awful,  the  sacred,  the  infinitely  salutary 
truth  of  the  duty  of  surrender.  We  might  have  dis- 
cussed awhile  the  abstract  fitness  of  the  creature's 
consent  to  its  totally  dependent  and  obliged  relation 
to  the  Creator,  the  strict  impossibility  of  its  being 
right  within  itself  till  it  is  right  in  its  internal  atti- 
tude towards  Him.  But  if  we  would  see  the  glory 
of  God  so  as  to  live  and  to  love,  we  must  make  haste 
to  see  it  "in  the  face  of  Jesus  Christ."  In  Him — 
blessed  be  His  name! — eternal  Right  draws  near, 
and,  never  for  a  moment  losing  its  pure  majesty, 
transfigures  itself  with  a  wonderful  smile  into  eternal 
Love.  In  Jesus  Christ  duty  (no  longer  a  mere  sub- 
lime abstraction)  is  seen  from  one  view-point  dei- 
fied, from  another  incarnate.  It  comes  to  you,  in 
Him,  not  only  to  command  but  to  embrace.  It  is 
personified  in  Him  who  is  at  once  infinitely  the 
Righteous,  and  also  the  Propitiation  for  your  sins.* 
You  hear  of  "claims,"  the  claims  of  the  Maker  upon 
His  work,  of  the  Cause  upon  His  effect.  It  is  well, 
*  i  John  iii.  2. 


AND  ITS  POSSESSIONS.— I.  71 


but  it  is  dark;  it  is  cold,  with  the  cold  of  mountain 
summits  beneath  the  stars;  but  you  find  that  those 
claims  are  the  claims  of  the  Lamb  that  was  slain — 
they  are  the  claims  of  the  Man  of  Sorrows.  Their 
Bearer  has  a  heart,  and  a  heart  that  was  broken — 
"for  us  men  and  for  our  salvation."  He  comes  in- 
deed to  say  to  you,  with  unfaltering  and  unreserved 
absoluteness,  meaning  every  syllable  as  He  says  it, 
that  you  are  not  your  own.  His  hand  opens  itself  to 
clasp,  to  grasp,  to  use  the  being  which  He  bought 
so  dear.  And  it  is  a  hand  awful  with  omnipotence ; 
it  might  crush  what  it  holds  even  into  annihilation. 
But  behold  the  face,  and  in  it  see  the  will,  the  love, 
the  heart !  To  that  heart  belongs  that  hand,  and  you 
know,  as  you  surrender  yourself  to  its  divine  te- 
nacity, that  it  will  hold  you  solely  for  purposes  which 
are  good  and  beautiful  in  the  sight  of  a  wisdom 
which  is  only  the  all-seeing  eyes  of  a  love  which 
eternally  passes  knowledge,  even  the  knowledge  of 
the  human  heart. 

Holy  Fenelon,  in  the  twenty-second  of  his  "Re- 
flections for  a  Month,"  quoting  and  commenting  on 
a  verse  of  Ecclesiasticus,  "How  great  is  the  loving 
kindness  of  the  Lord  our  God,  and  His  compassion 
unto  such  as  turn  unto  Him,"*  writes  thus :  "Why 
do  we  delay  to  cast  ourselves  into  the  depth  of  this 
*  Ecclus.  xvii.  29. 


72 


SELF-SURRENDER 


abyss  ?  The  more  we  lose  ourselves  therein,  in  faith 
and  love,  the  safer  we  are.  Let  us  give  ourselves  up 
to  God  without  reserve  or  apprehension  of  danger. 
He  will  love  us,  and  make  us  to  love  Him,  and  that 
Hove,  increasing  daily,  shall  produce  in  us  all  other 
virtues.  He  alone  shall  fill  our  heart,  which  the 
world  has  agitated  and  intoxicated,  but  could  never 
fill ;  He  will  take  nothing  from  us  but  what  makes  us 
unhappy;  He  will  alter  perhaps  little  in  our  actions" 
(leaving,  he  doubtless  means,  the  path  of  daily  duty 
unaltered  externally),  "and  only  correct  the  motive 
of  them  by  making  them  all  to  be  referred  to  Him- 
self. Then  the  most  ordinary  and  seemingly  indif- 
ferent doings  shall  become  exercises  of  virtue, 
sources  of  consolation.  Then  we  shall  cheerfully 
behold  death  approach  as  the  beginning  of  life  im- 
mortal, and,  as  St.  Paul  speaks,  'We  shall  not  be 
unclothed  but  clothed  upon,  that  mortality  may  be 
swallowed  up  of  life.'  " 

Even  so.  The  claim  is  infinitely  right.  The 
Claiment  is  the  Lord  who  died  for  you  and  rose 
again;  who  loved  you  and  gave  Himself  for  you; 
whose  insistence  upon  your  surrender  is  but  the 
issue  of  an  affection  infinitely  wonderful  and  full  of 
eternal  promises.  Wherefore,  without  a  fear — for 
nothing  is  more  safe,  more  happy,  as  nothing  is 
more  right — "present  yourselves  unto  God,  as  those 


AND  ITS  POSSESSIONS.—!.  73 


who  are  alive  from  the  dead."*  Assent  and  consent, 
at  the  feet  of  Jesus  Christ,  or  rather,  upon  His  heart, 
to  the  fact  that  "we  are  not  our  own." 

I  speak  to-day  in  this  honored  place  to  some  who 
are  at  the  threshold  of  their  Cambridge  life.  You  are 
just  touching  the  verge  of  those  three  years  or  so  of 
early  manhood  which  are  like  no  other  years,  whose 
imprint  must  be  left  on  all  after-time  for  gain  or 
loss — perhaps  for  glorious  gain,  perhaps  for  fatal 
loss.  My  friends  and  brethren,  we  who  have  known 
and  loved  Cambridge  for  years  and  years,  bid  our 
welcome  to  every  new  generation  with  an  always 
deepening  emotion.  We  know  more  and  more,  as 
we  live  here,  what,  for  those  who  join  us,  for  those 
who  will  soon  succeed  us,  this  place  can  be,  in  its 
double  grandeur  as  a  school  of  learning  and  a  school 
of  life.  And  in  order  that  you  may  get  not  less  out 
of  Cambridge,  but  more;  that  you  may  reap  the 
heaviest  and  the  richest  harvest,  social,  intellectual 
and  moral,  from  the  field  you  are  free  of  now ;  that 
you  may  be  to  the  utmost  and  know  to  the  utmost 
and  to  the  utmost  be  capacitated  here,  in  the  sense  of 
all  that  is  true  and  wholesome  and  of  good  report 
and  serviceable  to  your  generation — we  beseech  you 
to  remember  the  fact  that  you  are  not  your  own.  I 
am  not  here  to  deliver  a  studied  homily  upon  either 
*  Rom.  vi.  13. 


74 


SELF-SURRENDER 


the  perils  or  the  splendid  opportunities  of  Univer- 
sity life;  but  I  am  here  to  appeal,  in  my  Lord's 
name,  and  as  man  to  men,  to  any  who  shall  care 
to  listen;  to  appeal  to  them  to  be  sure  that,  alike 
for  strength  and  safety,  for  purity  and  pleasure,  for 
real  work  and  real  rest,  for  luminous  and  whole- 
some insight  into  all  true  knowledge,  for  the  opening 
of  the  largest  and  deepest  sympathies  between  heart 
and  heart,  there  is  no  secret  like  the  daily,  the  hourly, 
recognition  of  the  fact,  "I  am  not  my  own." 

The  directions  and  applications  of  it  will  vary  in- 
definitely, of  course,  with  your  varieties  of  charac- 
ter, calling  and  surroundings.  To  the  man  of  social 
gift  or  aptitude,  in  whatever  form,  it  will  be  a 
continual  reminder,  delicate  but  intense  in  its  per- 
sistency, on  the  one  hand,  not  to  let  his  hours  drift 
and  perish  in  gregarious  idleness;  on  the  other,  to 
understand  that  the  golden  talent  of  the  faculty  of 
attraction  and  contact  can  be  used  every  day  by 
your  Lord,  if  you  remember  that  you  are  never, 
anywhere,  your  own. 

The  man  conscious  that  mind  is  strong  within 
him  by  the  gift  of  God,  resolved  for  his  part  to 
maintain  the  great  studious  traditions  of  this  place, 
in  whatever  walk  of  knowledge  and  thought,  will 
find  in  his  assent  to  the  ownership  of  Jesus  Christ 
not  only  the  guidance  and  the  caution,  but  the 


AND  ITS  POSSESSIONS. — I. 


stimulus  and,  if  I  may  so  say,  the  clarification,  of 
his  intellectual  powers.  You  belong  to  Him  Who 
is  Himself  the  primal  Wisdom,  whose  "delights 
were"  (and  are)  "with  the  sons  of  men."*  "In  Him 
are  hid  all  the  treasures  of  knowledge;"  "In  Him 
all  things,"  visible,  invisible,  material,  mental, 
spiritual,  "consist."t  In  Jesus  Christ  is  space 
enough  for  the  whole  sphere  of  knowledge  to  re- 
volve, with  all  its  constellations.  They  who  learn 
and  who  think  "in  Him,"  shall  indeed  find,  with 
Newton,  with  Sedgwick,  with  Adams,  Lightfoot, 
Maxwell,  Babington,  that  to  serve  Him  is  at  once 
security  and  perfect  freedom,  in  the  world  of  mind 
as  in  the  world  of  soul. 

The  man  who  sees  himself,  as  he  thinks,  entrusted 
with  one  talent  only  (perhaps  he  hardly  dares  num- 
ber even  one),  will  find  in  the  recognized  fact  that 
he  belongs  to  Jesus  Christ,  the  gold  of  heaven,  al- 
ready transmuting  everything  into  itself.  "The 
common  round,  the  daily  task,"  met  in  Jesus  Christ ; 
the  trust  faithfully  fulfilled,  for  His  sake;  the  not 
quite  congenial  study  loyally  pursued  as  duty;  the 
life  of  self-respectful  habit;  the  unobtrusive  but 
distinct  line  of  Christian  obedience;  the  modest, 
cheerful,  reverent  confession  of  the  Redeemer's 
name — here  is  an  ideal  which  the  man  who  just 
*  Prov.  viii.  31.  t  Col.  i.  10. 


76 


SELF-SURRENDER 


knows  he  is  not  his  own,  but  that  Christ  is  his,  may 
realize  every  hour.  And  surely,  so  Scripture  indi- 
cates,* it  is  over  lives  like  these  that  the  heavenly 
principalities  bend  with  wonder,  looking  to  see 
"the  manifold  wisdom  of  God"  worked  out  in  our 
mortal  state. 

And  the  man  who  glows  with  love,  perhaps  with 
newborn  love,  to  Him  who  has  saved  him,  let  me 
say  one  word  more  to  him  about  this  life  controlled 
and  quickened  by  the  watchword,  "Not  your  own." 
The  holy  recollection  will  always  animate  you  in 
your  spiritual  activities.  You  will  be  impelled  by 
it  to  pray,  and  to  watch,  and  to  act,  so  that  other 
lives  may  find  what  you  have  found,  or  what,  rather, 
has  found  you.  But  your  watchword  will  always 
chasten  you  and  control  you.  The  same  power  which 
keeps  always  burning  the  altar-fire  of  sacred  love 
will  quench  the  false  flames  of  a  zeal  that  forgets 
humility,  an  energy  that  despises  loyalty,  an  en- 
thusiasm that  neglects  duty.  It  will  impel  you  in  the 
line,  not  of  least  resistance  but  of  most  fidelity;  it 
will  consecrate  for  you  the  rule  of  discipline ;  it  will 
glorify  for  you,  with  the  will  of  God,  your  intellect- 
ual labor,  and  its  results ;  it  will  make  the  class-list 
and  the  degree  important  to  you  with  an  ambition 
pure  with  the  thought  of  God  and  of  His  will.  Not 

*  Eph.  iii.  10. 


AND  ITS  POSSESSIONS.— I.  77 


to  protect  self,  not  to  spare  it,  but  because  precisely 
you  are  not  your  own,  you  will  "exercise  yourselves" 
in  the  plainest  and  most  prosaic  obligations,  in  those 
which  on  the  mere  surface  may  seem  the  least  spirit- 
ual of  all,  "to  have  always  a  conscience  void  of  of- 
fense both  towards  God  and  towards  man." 

Happy  the  life  here  which  takes  definitely  the 
motto  "I  belong — I  am  not  my  own ;"  happy  till  over 
its  grave  at  length  is  written  the  apostolic  epitaph : 
"Having  served  his  own  generation  by  the  will  of 
God,  he  fell  asleep."  That  last  word  cannot  be 
uttered  today  without  one  reverent  tribute  to  the 
illustrious  name*  just  transferred  from  our  aca- 
demical registers  to  the  long  roll  of  the  departed. 
Eminent,  renowned,  as  a  great  medical  man,  con- 
summate in  the  practice  of  his  noble  profession,  a 
genuine  scientific  inquirer  and  discoverer,  a  master 
of  wide  and  manifold  knowledge,  a  teacher  of  the 
first  order,  a  leader  gifted  with  that  enviable  class 
of  genius  which  knows  how  to  call  up,  almost  to 
create,  the  energies  of  others  for  the  highest  ends, 
brilliant  in  discourse  and  conversation,  most  excel- 
lent as  a  friend,  Humphry,  to  the  still  youthful  end 
of  his  long  life,  was  emphatically  one  who  "served 
his  own  generation,"  seeking,  assuredly,  to  serve  it 

*  Professor  Sir  George  Murray  Humphry,  M.D.,  F.R.S., 
died  Sept.  24,  1896. 


78 


SELF-SURRENDER 


"by  the  will  of  God."  And,  quite  apart  from  his 
public  energies,  no  one,  I  suppose,  will  ever  know 
all  the  unobtrusive  and  generous  good  he  did  behind 
them — all  the  kindness,  all  the  painstaking  sympathy, 
all  the  bounty  where  he  heardiof  need.  Poor  enough 
is  this  eulogy;  but  it  was  impossible  not  to  pronounce 
it  over  the  grave  of  one  whose  name  and  form  have 
been  so  familiar,  so  conspicuous  here,  through  much 
more  than  all  my  own  Cambridge  life  rb  yap  ytpas  iari 

0a  vbvrviv. 

Meantime  ours  is  still  the  pathway,  not  yet  the 
goal.  And  for  us,  in  the  name  of  our  Redeemer, 
along  the  pathway  and  for  the  goal,  the  inmost 
watchword  must  still  be  this,  "Ye  are  not  your  own." 


V 

SELF-SURRENDER  AND  ITS  POSSES- 
SIONS—II 

Preached  in  the  University  Church,  Cambridge 

"Ye  are  not  your  own." — i  Cor.  vi.  19. 
"All  things  are  yours." — 1  Cor.  iii.  21. 

We  gave  our  thoughts  last  Sunday  to  the  former 
limb  of  this  double  text.  Nearly  from  first  to  last 
we  were  occupied  with  "Ye  are  not  your  own,"  that 
watchword  of  obligation,  that  oracle  of  surrender. 
It  claims  for  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  nothing  less 
than  ourselves;  it  invades  the  very  center  of  the  life, 
and  proclaims  not  the  surroundings  and  the  condi- 
tions only,  but  the  man,  to  be  the  property  of  the 
Redeemer.  "I  belong,  henceforth,  not  unto  myself, 
but  unto  Him  who  died  for  me  and  rose  again." 

We  took  note  already  last  week  of  another  side  of 
things.  We  remembered  that  under  the  strictness 
and  exigency  of  "not  your  own"  there  lies  latent  a 
glorious  world  of  liberty  and  life,  the  life  of  God  in 
man.  This  comes  powerfully  out  in  the  context  of 
1  Cor.  vi.  What  are  the  words  which  just  precede 
the  "Ye  are  not  your  own"  ?  They  are  the  assurance 

79 


8o 


SELF-SURRENDER 


to  the  Christian  that  "his  body  is  the  temple  of  the 
Holy  Ghost,  which  he  has  of  God;"  that  he  "is 
joined  unto  the  Lord,  one  spirit."  He  is  property 
indeed,  in  a  sense  the  most  practical  and  prosaic; 
he  is  "bought,  with  a  price."  For  St.  Paul,  no  words 
are  too  plain  to  urge  that  thought  home.  He  knows 
none  of  the  dread  felt  by  some  theologians  of  what 
they  are  pleased  to  call  a  commercial  Gospel. 
"Bought,"  "bought  with  a  price,"  "bought  out  from 
the  curse  of  the  law,"  "purchased  with  His  own 
blood" — such  phrases,  as  you  all  know,  lie  at  the 
very  heart  of  the  Pauline  message.  But  then,  they 
are  vivified  and  glorified  by  the  other  elements  of  it. 
The  being  is  possessed  as  property;  but  he  is  also 
possessed  as  living  limb.  Not  only  are  his  Lord's 
rights  over  him;  his  Lord's  life  is  in  him.  Not  only 
is  he  infinitely  bound  to  do  his  Redeemer's  will ;  he 
is  so  related  to  his  Redeemer  that  he  is  wonderfully 
empowered  to  do  it;  and  his  law  of  liberty  is  just 
this — to  do  His  will. 

One  pause  of  thought  more  before  we  leave  last 
Sunday's  special  theme,  and  take  up  the  second 
message  of  our  text.  The  pause  is  for  a  reason  per- 
fectly practical.  I  stay  to  remind  you  why  just 
there,  in  that  close  of  i  Cor.  vi.,  St.  Paul  says  that 
"you  are  not  your  own."  He  is  not  talking  into  the 
air.   He  has  a  human  heart  in  view.   He  is  remind- 


AND  ITS  POSSESSIONS.— II.  81 


ing  a  desperately  tempted  man  in  old  Corinth — Cor- 
inth with  its  worldly  glitter  and  its  seething  vice — 
how  not  to  sin.  There  is  the  Corinthian  convert — 
the  recent  convert.  His  heathen  heredity  is  in  him, 
his  old  bad  associations  are  around  him.  Is  it  possible 
for  that  man  not  to  sin,  not  to  fall,  not  to  slide  back 
into  the  mire  again,  and  float  down  the  black  river? 
Yes,  it  is.  But  how?  Not,  in  the  judgment  of  the 
Apostle,  by  any  mere  inculcation  of  "you  ought" 
and  "you  ought  not ;"  not  by  any  mere  words,  how- 
ever they  may  burn,  upon  the  shame  of  wrong  and 
the  eternal  duty  and  beauty  of  right,  of  purity;  no, 
but  by  the  applied  power  of  God.  It  can  be  done,  by 
throwing  at  once  into  the  very  will  and  soul  all  the 
force,  all  the  weight,  all  the  life,  of  the  inmost  and 
most  astonishing  Gospel.  It  can  be  done,  "in  the 
name  of  the  Lord  Jesus,  and  by  the  Spirit  of  our 
God."  So  he  tells  the  sinful  man,  in  the  thick  of 
temptation,  that  he,  having  fled  to  Christ,  is  one 
with  Christ;  he  is  "one  spirit"  with  Christ;  his 
very  body  is  "the  temple"  of  the  Holy  One;  he  "is 
joined  to  the  Lord."*  Let  him  say  all  this  to  him- 
self, as  fact.  Let  him  say  all  this  to  the  tempter,  to 
his  face,  as  fact.  So  the  tempted  one  shall  "do 
valiantly,"  and  only  so.  He  is  weak  indeed ;  but 
his  Lord  is  present  with  him,  is  dwelling  in  him,  in 
*  i  Cor.  vi.  17. 


82 


SELF-SURRENDER 


every  sense  is  in  possession  of  him;  and  He  "shall 
tread  down  our  enemies."  In  this  war  the  Ark  must 
be  in  the  battle,  and  nothing  less  than  the  Ark. 
Jesus  Christ  Himself — for  you,  in  you — must  be 
your  victory,  your  triumph  against  the  devil,  the 
world  and  the  flesh. 

"Not  me  the  dark  foe  fears  at  all, 

But  hid  in  Thee  I  take  the  field; 
Now  at  my  feet  the  mighty  fall, 

For  Thou  hast  bid  them  yield." 

But  it  is  time  to  come  direct  to  that  second  mem- 
ber of  the  text  which  I  reserved  for  our  particular 
thought  today:  "All  things  are  yours."  What  does 
this  mean? 

It  is  worth  our  while  first  to  recall  something  of 
what  it  does  not  mean.  It  does  not  mean  license, 
the  parody  and  libel  of  liberty.  It  does  not  mean 
selfishness,  the  mind  which  grasps  or  which  with- 
holds at  the  dictate  of  self-will;  this  is  not  posses- 
sion, but  theft ;  this,  in  its  effect,  is  nothing  but  the 
hard  bondage  and  poverty  of  the  being.  It  does 
not  mean,  God  knoweth,  the  faintest  shadow  of  a 
slur  over  moral  distinctions — the  bad  dream  that 
you  can  be  so  spiritual  as  to  be,  even  for  one  fraction 
of  a  moment,  emancipated  from  conscience;  the 
lying  whisper  that  you  shall  not  surely  die  of  per- 
mitted sin,  because  Christ  died  for  you. 

It  does  not  mean  a  relaxation  of  the  divine  rule 


AND  ITS  POSSESSIONS.— II.  83 


of  self-sacrifice;  let  us  be  sure  of  this.  It  is  not 
spoken  in  order  to  throw  the  halo  of  the  Gospel  over 
a  life  which,  professing  godliness,  is  yet  secretly, 
perhaps  almost  unconsciously,  making  itself  as  com- 
fortable as  possible  for  its  own  sake.  It  is  not  spoken 
to  help  us  to  minimize  the  call  to  bear  the  cross,  and 
to  serve  the  Lord  in  others,  while  we  multiply  and 
magnify  excuses  for  indulgences  and  enjoyments 
which,  however  cultivated  and  refined,  terminate  in 
ourselves.  The  words  are  not  given  us  to  insinuate 
that,  if  we  will  but  say  "Lord,  Lord,"  with  a  certain 
fervbr,  we  may  live  as  those  who  think  that  a  man's 
"life"  does  "consist  in  the  abundance  of  the  things 
which  he  possesseth." 

No,  it  cannot  be  so;  we  know  that  it  cannot  be. 
The  whole  Law,  and  the  whole  Gospel,  both  look 
the  other  way.  They  both  equally  belie  reasonings 
from  "All  things  are  yours"  which  only  mean  the 
life  of  self  come  back  again  to  the  house  left  "empty, 
swept  and  garnished."  The  solemn  context  of  the 
text  is  itself  a  warning.  For  what  has  gone  just 
before?  See  verse  17,  for  the  stern  menace  that 
"if  any  man  defile  the  temple  of  God" — that  is, 
himself — "him  shall  God  destroy;"  see  verse  13, 
for  the  prophecy  of  the  day  of  fire,  when  "every 
man's  work  shall  be  tested,  of  what  sort  it  is."  And 


84 


SELF-SURRENDER 


verse  18  conveys  the  entreaty  not  to  be  deceived 
by  a  specious  wisdom  which  prefers  the  world  to 
God. 

But  then,  most  certainly,  the  words  have  a  mean- 
ing, positive  and  beautiful — "All  things  are  yours." 
They  are  spoken  indeed  to  those,  and  to  those  only, 
who  are  not  their  own,  but  their  Lord's  possession. 
But  they  do  not  merely  restate  that  side  of  truth. 
They  give  its  contrast  and  its  complement.  They 
turn  the  shield  quite  round,  to  show  its  other  face — 
and  it  is  another.  "You  are  not  your  own" — be  sure 
of  that;  it  is  an  immovable"  fact.  "All  things  are 
yours" — be  sure  of  that  also ;  it  is  meant  to  carry  to 
you  a  magnificent  message,  affirmative,  distinctive, 
altogether  its  own. 

For  explanation  and  application,  let  us  look  first 
at  the  near  context,  and  read  the  short  section  com- 
prised in  verses  21  to  23  :  "Let  no  man  glory  in  man. 
For  all  things  are  yours;  whether  Paul,  or  Apollos, 
or  Cephas,  or  the  world,  or  life,  or  death,  or  things 
present,  or  things  to  come,  all  are  yours ;  and  ye  are 
Christ's  and  Christ  is  God's."  Here  is  the  occasion 
,  here  is  the  reason  of  the  words.  The  Corinthians, 
you  remember,  had  been  forgetting  in  a  particular 
way  the  grandeur  of  their  direct,  immediate,  spirit- 
ual relation  to  God  in  Christ.  The'y  had  lost  sight 
in  one  quarter  of  what  it  was  to  be  His  own.  They 


AND  ITS  POSSESSIONS.— II.  85 


had  been  attaching  themselves  to  human  leaders,  as 
such,  in  a  way  which  obscured  their  own  wonderful 
connection  with  the  Eternal  Love.  They  had  given 
themselves  over  to  a  party  spirit,  a  divided  and 
vehement  partisanship,  which  befitted  rather  the  tools 
of  rival  chiefs  in  a  secular  struggle  than  those  for 
whom  even  Apostles  and  Prophets  existed  as  only 
servants  of  the  saints  of  God.  Now,  above  this  mis- 
erable trouble  they  were  to  rise,  in  the  recollection 
of  the  fact  that,  because  God  in  Christ  had  annexed 
them  directly  to  Himself,  God  in  Christ  was  directly 
concerned  to  make  everything  combine  for  their 
fullest  and  most  perfect  good.  They  were  not  a  set 
of  cliques ;  they  were  the  Family  of  God.  Then  they 
had  something  better  to  do  than  to  support  or  to  ac- 
claim a  leader  and  lift  him  upon  a  pedestal.  If  he 
was  indeed  a  man  sent  from  God,  he  was  given  to 
them,  not  they  to  him.  Taken  as  believers,  they 
all  were  the  children  for  whom  their  Father  would 
do  anything.  Taken  as  a  messenger,  even  an  Apostle 
was  but  a  servant,  ordered  to  do  his  uttermost  for 
them.  Were  they  the  Lord's,  given  to  Him,  with  all 
they  had  ?  Then,  by  the  law  of  divine  relation,  the 
Lord,  with  all  Fie  .had,  was  theirs,  given  to  them. 
And  He  had  all  things.  So  all  things,  being  His, 
were  theirs. 

We  have  here  at  once  a  fact  full  of  grace  and 


86 


SELF-SURRENDER 


glory.  And  it  is  lifted  far  above  place  and  time. 
Now  as  then,  now  and  for  ever,  the  man  who  be- 
longs to  Christ  in  truth,  assenting  from  the  soul  to 
the  ownership  of  his  Redeemer,  is  out  and  out  His 
property.  But  he  is  also,  and  at  the  same  moment, 
and  with  equal  reality,  His  brother.  In  that  deep 
and  inmost  sense  of  the  terms  on  which  Scripture 
dwells  with  inexhaustible  and  loving  recurrence,  he 
is  "a  child  of  God."  And  his  Father  will  do  any- 
thing for  him.  Nothing  of  his  Father's  resources 
shall  be  grudged  to  him.  Wisdom  and  love  may, 
and  will,  sort  and  sift,  and  in  that  sense  limit  the 
things  which  shall  be  put  actually  into  the  child's 
hands.  But  the  whole  wealth  of  the  great  home  is 
his,  in  the  sense  that  he  is  the  child  for  whom  any- 
thing shall  be  done.  On  him  no  resources  are  too 
great  to  spend.  His  utmost  good  is  watched  for, 
always  and  everywhere.  His  Father  delights  ex- 
ceedingly to  meet  his  wishes,  and  limits  the  meeting 
of  them  only  by  the  interests  of  the  child;  and  He 
has  made  those  interests  identical  with  His  own. 

Is  not  this  a  thought,  let  me  rather  say  a  fact, 
with  which  every  Christian  man  is  to  look  around 
and  find  life  transfigured?  "My  Lord,  my  Father, 
I  am  ever  with  Thee,  and  all  that  Thou  hast  is  mine. 
Thou  hast  put  much  actually  into  my  hands,  out  of 
Thy  treasuries.    I  have  but  to  open  my  eyes  and 


AND  ITS  POSSESSIONS.— II.  87 


count  a  few  of  Thy  blessings,  and  they  begin  to 
crowd  and  multiply  upon  my  view.  But  behind 
them  lies  the  immeasurable  wealth  always  latent  in 
the  fact  that  Thou  art  mine,  that  Thou  art  devoted 
to  me.  Not  in  dream  or  poem,  but  in  'a  sober  cer- 
tainty of  waking  bliss,'  I  may  confidently  say  this. 
Thou  art  devoted  to  me.  Giver  of  Thine  own  Son, 
wilt  Thou  not,  dost  Thou  not,  with  Him  also  freely 
give  me  all  things  ?*  All  is  mine ;  some  of  the  all  is 
in  my  hands,  the  rest  in  trust  with  Thee." 

Adolphe  Monod,  great  saint,  great  teacher,  great 
sufferer,  lying  on  a  premature  couch  of  anguish  and 
death,  forty  years  ago,  at  Paris,  collected  in  his  bed- 
chamber, Sunday  by  Sunday,  a  little  congregation  of 
friends ;  Guizot  was  sometimes  of  the  number.  There 
he  addressed  them,  like  Standfast  in  the  Pilgrim's 
Progress,  as  from  the  very  waters  of  the  last  river, 
speaking  always  on  his  lifelong  theme,  Jesus  Christ. 
The  pathetic  series  of  these  Adieux  a  ses  Amis  et  a 
I'Eglise  was  gathered  after  his  death  into  a  volume. 
Late  in  its  pages  comes  a  discourse  with  the  title,  All 
in  Jesus  Christ.  From  this  let  me  quote  a  few  sen- 
tences ;  they  deal  with  our  theme  of  this  afternoon : 
"Be  it  wisdom,  be  it  light,  be  it  power,  be  it  victory 
over  sin,  be  it  a  matter  of  this  world  or  of  the  world 
to  come,  all  is  in  Christ.  Having  Christ,  we  have  all 
*  Rom.  viii.  32. 


88 


SELF-SURRENDER 


things ;  bereft  of  Christ,  we  have  alsolutely  nothing. 
'All  things  are  yours,  and  you  are  Christ's,  and 
Christ  is  God's.'  Well,  then,  what  is  the  result  for 
me  ?  I  am  poor,  it  may  be.  Yet  all  the  fortunes  of 
this  world  are  mine ;  for  they  are  Christ's,  who  Him- 
self is  God's,  and  who  could  easily  give  them  all  to 
me,  with  Himself,  if  they  would  serve  my  interests. 
The  whole  world,  with  all  its  glories,  with  all  its 
power,  belongs  to  me;  for  it  belongs  to  my  Father, 
who  will  give  it  me  to-morrow,  and  could  give  it  me 
to-day,  if  that  were  good  for  me.  I  am  very  ill,  it 
may  be.  Yet  health  is  mine,  strength  is  mine,  com- 
fort is  mine,  a  perfect  enjoyment  of  all  the  blessings 
of  life  is  mine;  for  all  this  belongs  to  Christ,  who 
belongs  to  God,  and  who  disposes  of  it  as  He  will.  If 
He  withholds  these  things  from  me  to-day,  for  a 
fleeting  moment,  swift  as  the  shuttle  in  the  loom,  it 
is  for  reasons  wholly  of  His  own ;  it  is  because  these 
pains  and  this  bitterness  conceal  a  benediction  worth 
more  to  me  than  the  health  so  precious,  than  the  com- 
fort so  delightful.  ...  I  challenge  you  to  find 
a  thing  of  which  I  cannot  say :  'This  is  my  Father's ; 
therefore  it  is  mine;  if  He  withholds  it  to-day,  He 
will  give  it  me  to-morrow.'  I  trust  myself  to  His 
love.   All  is  mine,  if  I  am  His." 

Let  us,  too,  with  the  saintly  Parisian  pastor,  look 
at  life,  at  real  life,  from  this  transcendent  yet  abso- 


AND  ITS  POSSESSIONS.— II.  89 


lutely  practical  point  of  view.   There  is  another  side 
of  the  message,  as  we  will  presently  remember. 
There  is  wonderfully  opened  to  you  in  Jesus  Christ 
a  secret  of  intense  enjoyment,  a  delightful  sense  of 
possession,  for  the  sunny  fields  and  morning  hours 
of  life.    But  you  will  approach  that  fact  the  better 
for  a  firm  recollection  first,  that  life  is  not  all  sun- 
shine; and  that  is  by  no  means  your  first  business 
to  make  it  as  comfortable  as  you  can  for  yourself, 
but  to  "gird  up  the  loins  of  your  mind"  to  do  and  to 
bear  and  to  "hope  to  the  end  ;"*  and  then  that  over 
life  thus  considered  the  Lord  can  cast  the  glory  of 
the  fact  that  in  Him  all  things  are  yours.    In  Him 
you  possess  the  dominate  circumstance ;  you  are  not 
its  victim  but  its  employer.   In  Him,  in  the  ultimate 
truth  of  the  matter,  you  are  lifted  out  of  disappoint- 
ment and  its  power.    You  may  seem  to  sink,  to 
faint,  to  fail ;  you  may  wear  out ;  you  may  be  thrown 
aside;  your  "purposes,"  as  you  see  them,  may  be 
"broken  off."    But  are  you  Christ's?    Are  you  a 
limb  of  His  body  ?   Are  you  the  willing  implement 
of  His  will  ?   Then  you  are  being  somehow  manipu- 
lated and  used  by  One  who  eternally  succeeds,  and 
you,  too,  are  successful  so.    It  was  thus  that  St. 
Paul  himself,  in  his  last  prison,  was  able  to  dictate 
the  words:  "Nevertheless  I  am  not  ashamed;"!  I 
*l  Pet.  i.  13.  t2  Tim.  i.  12. 


9o 


SELF-SURRENDER 


am  not  disappointed.  From  other  points  of  sight 
than  this  he  might  well  be  a  disappointed  man. 
Taken  apart  from  Christ,  he  was  failing  amidst  a 
whole  world  of  failures;  it  looked  as  if  his  life's 
work  were  being  wrecked  and  extinguished  by  the 
tremendous  world-power,  awakened  to  fear  and 
anger ;  his  teaching  was  travestied  or  discredited  in 
the  Church;  his  heart's  affections  were  lacerated; 
himself  by  all  men  was  forsaken.  But  he  "knew 
whom  he  had  believed."  He  was  in  the  hands  of 
Jesus  Christ,  and  he  knew  it.  And  there  he  was  in- 
vulnerable to  disappointment,  in  his  all-seeing  and 
all-controlling  Lord. 

It  is  only  when  you  are  really  armed  in  Christ  for 
the  shocks  and  storms  of  life  that  you  are  really  safe 
to  remember  that  you  are  enabled  in  Christ  for  a 
double  enjoyment  of  its  joys.  But  now,  it  is  even  so 
— you  are  so  enabled.  I  dare  with  confidence  to 
affirm  that  the  Christian  believer,  surrendered  to  his 
Lord  and  at  rest  in  Him,  is,  in  a  sense  perfectly 
human,  however  much  it  is  also  divine,  the  hap- 
piest, the  most  cheerful  man.  This  is  natural ;  it  is  as 
it  should  be.  It  is  for  him  alone  that  Humanity 
wears  all  its  greatness  and  Nature  shines  with  all 
her  glory.  More  and  more,  as  the  world  rolls  on 
and  human  insight  grows  with  watching,  a  per- 
vading melancholy  threatens  the  heart  which  ob- 


AND  ITS  POSSESSIONS.— II. 


serves  and  tastes,  but  is  not  in  Jesus  Christ.  For 
what  is  there,  out  of  Him,  and  away  from  the  cer- 
tainties in  Him  of  a  life  eternal,  which  is  not  already 
touched  by  the  shadows  of  an  ultimate  and  illimit- 
able death?  But  in  Christ  you  see  man  redeemed, 
and  man's  life  invested  in  Him  with  a  boundless 
present  interest,  and  with  possibilities  "unspeakable 
and  full  of  glory."  In  Christ,  the  Cause  and  Key- 
stone of  creation,*  man  sees  the  Universe  at  last 
warm  and  living  with  a  Soul.  He  loves  the  Artificer 
in  the  Work;  he  understands  and  feels  the  Heart 
within  the  Vesture,  f  To  him  the  events  of  the  day 
are  pregnant  with  the  providence  of  his  Father  and 
of  his  eternal  Brother,  and  this  gives  them  at  once 
a  dignity  and  a  hope  unknown  elsewhere.  To  him 
the  mountain  and  the  forest,  the  flood  and  the  cloud, 
are  the  work,  the  characteristic  handiwork,  of  his 
inmost  Friend.  In  Cowper's  words,  in  the  "Task," 
in  a  passage  of  the  highest  order,  he 

"Acknowledges  with  joy 
His  manner,  and  with  rapture  tastes  his  style." 

To  him  the  largest  incidents  of  his  path  and  also 
the  smallest,  are  not  only  things  to  be  somehow  met ; 
they  are  touches  and  pressures  of  the  Hand  which 
manages  everything  "for  good  to  them  that  love 
God."  He  can  deal  with  things  so  seen  as  more 
*  See  Ps.  cii.  26.  t  See  Col.  i.  16,  17. 


92 


SELF-SURRENDER 


than  a  spectator.  He  is  a  son  and  heir  upon  his 
Father's  property.  He  is  concerned;  he  possesses; 
he  is  at  home. 

That  is  a  noble  sentence  in  the  "Apology"  of  Aris- 
tides  (Chap,  xvi.),  where  the  observer  of  the  Church 
describes  the  cheerfulness  of  primitive  Christian  life, 
and,  let  us  add,  of  primitive  Christian  death.  "As 
men  who  know  God,"  he  writes,  "they  ask  of  Him 
petitions  which  are  proper  for  Him  to  give  and  for 
them  to  receive ;  and  they  thus  accomplish  the  course 
of  their  lives.  And  because  they  acknowledge  the 
goodnesses  of  God  towards  them — lo !  for  them 
there  flows  forth  the  beauty  that  is  in  the  world." 

"Never,"  said  a  thoughtful  young  Cambridge 
man  of  a  recent  generation,  "never,  till  I  knew  my 
Lord  indeed,  did  I  really  see  the  beauty  of  branch 
and  foliage  in  the  trees."  Yes,  Jesus  Christ  can  re- 
store the  loss  mourned  by  the  great  poet;  He  can 
more  than  "bring  us  back  the  hour  of  splendor  in  the 
grass,  of  glory  in  the  flower."  In  the  Eastern  wilder- 
nesses a  beloved  friend  of  my  own,*  a  missionary  of 
the  Cross  in  the  most  difficult  of  fields,  a  man  whose 
inmost  instincts  ask  for  the  cultured  and  the  beauti- 
ful (and,  as  to  human  arts,  ask  this  now  in  vain), 
has  found  God  wonderfully  present  to  him  in  Nature 

*  The  Rev.  H.  Carless,  M.A.,  of  Corpus  Christi  College.  He 
died  in  the  province  of  Kerman,  in  Persia,  1898. 


AND  ITS  POSSESSIONS.— II.  93 


— cheering,  uplifting,  giving  company.  The  con- 
stellations of  the  Persian  midnight  have  been  alive 
to  him  with  the  smile  of  his  Master.  The  solitary 
tree  upon  the  hill,  the  tuft  of  flowers  beside  the  up- 
land track,  have  taken  on  them  for  his  eyes  a  beauty 
as  of  Paradise ;  the  thought  of  God  in  them  has  re- 
sponded to  the  life  of  God  in  him. 

"Heaven  above  is  softer  blue, 
Earth  around  is  sweeter  green; 
Something  lives  in  every  hue 
Christless  eyes  had  never  seen." 

"All  things  are  yours;  whether  things  present  or 
things  to  come."  The  one  region  is  yours  as  truly  as 
the  other.  To-day  is  yours;  your  "to-day,"  young 
man,  with  all  its  interests,  its  force,  its  hopes,  with 
all  its  contents  and  development;  every  step  of  all 
the  path — ay !  till  it  enters  that  eternal  future  which 
already  casts  its  solemn  radiance  upon  to-day.  "All 
things  are  yours,  whether  life  or  death."  Life  is 
yours,  to  enjoy  heartily,  to  understand  profoundly, 
to  use  as  your  precious  possession;  for  you  are  its 
owner,  for  you  are  a  child  of  God.  And  then,  death 
is  yours.  Wonderful  words! — but  so  they  stand,  a 
paradox  of  blessing.  How  much  it  looks  as  if  we 
rather  were  death's  prey !  But  in  Christ  the  veil  is 
lifted,  and  death  is  found  to  be  the  possession  of 
His  servant.    The  thing  may  come  soon  or  come 


94 


SELF-SURRENDER 


late.  It  may  advance  slowly  upon  you,  and  in  full 
view ;  it  may  strike  you  from  an  ambush,  and  in  the 
twinkling  of  an  eye,  as  only  last  Tuesday,  in  our 
midst,  it  struck  an  honored  life,*  and  bade  us  (so 
soon  again  after  our  last  bereavement)  t  lament  an- 
other work  cut  short,  another  circle  of  many  friend- 
ships broken,  another  heart  left  desolate.  Yet  death 
in  Christ,  O  Christian  man,  is  yours.  It  is  not  an 
accident;  it  is  a  gift.  It  is  not  a  spectre,  hideous 
with  the  relics  of  the  sepulchre ;  it  is  the  Angel  of  the 
Presence,  stepping  from  within  the  eternal  tent  J  to 
lift  its  curtain  for  the  believer's  entrance  in.  It  is 
the  "silent  opener  of"  that  "gate"  as  to  the  other 
side  of  which  we  have  just  this  revealed,§  that  while 
life  for  Christ  is  real,  is  happy,  is  rich,  is  free,  is  im- 
measurably good,  "to  depart  and  to  be  with  Christ 
is  far,  far  better"  still. 

*The  Rev.  F.  Pattrick,  Tutor  of  Magdalene  College,  died 
very  suddenly,  October  6,  1896. 
t  See  above,  p.  46. 

*  See  Luke  xvi.  9.  §  Phil,  i,  23. 


VI. 

THE  SELF-CONSECRATION  OF  THE 
CHRIST 

Preached  on  Christmas  Day,  in  the  University  Church,  Cam- 
bridge. 

"Then  said  He,  Lo,  I  have  come  to  do  Thy  will,  O  God." — 
H£B.  x.  9. 

"Then  said  I,  Lo,  I  have  come ;  I  delight  to  do  Thy  will." — 
Ps.  xl.  7,  8. 

I  invite  you  this  Christmas  afternoon  to  a  sursam 
corda.  Habeamus  ad  Dominwn;  "Let  us  hold  our 
hearts  up  unto  the  Lord ;"  let  us  kneel  in  recollecting 
faith  at  the  cradle  of  the  Incarnation;  and  let  us 
look  up  from  beside  it  to  the  heaven  of  heavens, 
to  ponder  a  little  while  that  great  antecedent  to 
Bethlehem,  the  Self-Consecration  of  the  Eternal  Son 
to  His  incarnate  life  and  work. 

This  lies  here  before  us  in  the  Scriptures  of  the 
text,  in  the  New  Testament  and  in  the  Old.  What 
was  the  immediate  occasion  and  impulse  to  the  writ- 
ing of  Psalm  xl.  I  do  not  ask;  no  certain  answer 
is  even  remotely  possible.  But  for  all  who  accept 
without  reserve  the  interpreting  authority  of  the 
apostolic  Scriptures,  it  is  settled  by  Hebrews  x.  that 

95 


96     SELF-CONSECRATION  OF  CHRIST. 


the  ultimate  purpose  of  Him  who  moved  the  Psalm- 
ist to  write  was  to  reveal  to  us  the  thought  and  in- 
tent of  the  Christ  Himself,  in  His  will  to  come  into 
the  world. 

The  consciousness  of  the  Psalmist  may  have  been 
this,  or  it  may  have  been  that,  as  he  took  up  his  harp 
and  sung  his  wonderful  song  of  joy  and  conflict. 
There  is  nothing  to  entitle  us  to  assert,  as  if  we 
knew,  that  his  condition  was  not  purely  and 
directly  prophetic ;  that  he  did  not  sing  in  a  rapture 
of  the  Spirit,  in  a  state  of  holy  second  sight,  easily 
overleaping  sense  and  time.  On  the  other  hand 
there  is  nothing  to  entitle  us  to  assert,  as  if  we 
knew,  that  such  a  rapture  was  then  and  there  upon 
him.  But  this  we  may  affirm,  if  the  witness  of  the 
Christian  Scriptures  is  adequate  for  us,  that  the 
Psalmist's  Inspirer,  moving  him  to  utter  what  he 
did,  meant,  ultimately,  to  speak  an  oracle  concern- 
ing the  King  Eternal,  the  Christ  of  God.  So  the 
Scripture,  with  both  its  hands,  the  prophetic  and 
the  apostolic,  lifts  for  us  here  the  veil  from  no  less 
a  secret  than  this.  It  discloses  to  us  "the  mind  that 
was  in  Christ  Jesus,"  when,  in  the  eternity  which  is 
above  our  time,  He,  the  Son  with  the  Father,  the 
Son  of  the  Father's  love,  the  Son  "beloved  before 
the  foundation  of  the  universe,"  willed  to  come  down 
and  to  become  flesh.    It  utters  to  us  the  thought 


SELF-CONSECRATION  OF  CHRIST.  97 

with  which  He,  being  true  God,  elected  to  be  also 
true  Man.  It  lets  us  hear  His  resolve  to  come  and 
to  do  the  Father's  will,  in  saving  us. 

"There,  on  the  heights  of  primal  Deity, 
Before  all  worlds,  Messiah  will'd  to  part 
Himself  from  glory,  and  in  destined  time 
So  parted,  for  us  men,  descending  thence 
With  voice  of  consecration,  'Lo,  I  come 
To  do  Thy  will.' " 

How  shall  we  think  aright,  how  shall  we  speak, 

of  such  a  thing?   Here  is  a  theme,  if  any,  to  make 

us  remember  the  vanity  of  words  without  the  Spirit, 

the  paltriness  of  the  tinkling  of  speech  where  the 

Lord  of  love  does  not  give  and  guide  the  message. 

But  may  He,  in  His  great  mercy,  not  leave  us  alone 

with  this  matter.    Then,  and  only  then,  something 

may  be  attained  by  our  thought  which  shall  indeed 

be  His. 

Now,  what  have  we  in  the  whole  Book  of  God 
more  wonderful  in  its  kind  than  this  revelation, 
given  us  through  the  Epistle  and  the  Psalm?  It 
comes  with  all  the  holy  simplicity  characteristic  of 
Scripture.  Nothing  is  intruded  here  of  that  imagi- 
native or  rather  fanciful  detail  with  which  even  a 
Milton  can  only  spoil  the  theme  of  the  counsels  of 
Heaven : 

"In  quibbles  angel  and  archangel  join, 
And  God  the  Father  turns  a  school  divine." 


98     SELF-CONSECRATION  OF  CHRIST. 


All  is  brief  and  unrestrained,  but  all  is  wonderful. 
We  are  suffered  to  overhear  eternal  Voices  speaking 
to  one  another  upon  the  Throne.  By  implication, 
we  hear  One  call,  as  if  looking  for  agency  and 
messenger:  "Whom  shall  I  send?  Who  will  go?" 
And  then  from  a  height  no  lower,  from  a  glory  no 
less  excellent,  Another  answers :  "Lo,  I  have  come !" 
The  answer  sounds  in  the  tone  of  nothing  less  than 
Godhead ;  for  it  is  the  utterance  of  an  absolute  free- 
will, issuing  in  action  of  absolute  vonderfulness  and 
merit.  But  it  is  an  answer  also  in  the  tone  of  sub- 
ordination :  it  gives  and  yields,  it  speaks  a  personal 
surrender  to  a  personal  disposal.  He  who  here 
"comes  to  do  a  will"  in  some  sense  not  His  own,  is 
immeasurably  free  of  exterior  constraints  to  sub- 
mission. But  He  submits.  And  in  His  submission 
a  divine  moral  fitness  strikes  perfect  harmony  with 
a  divine  moral  freedom. 

What  shall  we  say  of  the  words  "O  God,  0  my 
God/'  heard  as  we  listen  at  the  sanctuary  door? 
Can  it  be  that  even  before  Incarnation  the  Coming 
One  could  thus  address  the  Sender?  Is  the  eternal 
Subordination  of  the  Son  a  warrant  for  such  a 
thought,  under  the  safeguard  of  a  full  concurrent 
confession  of  our  Redeemer's  proper  Godhead?  It 
is  hard  to  put  the  thought  into  form  without  running 
into  inferences,  or  at  least  associations,  which  touch 


SELF-CONSECRATION  OF  CHRIST.  99 


the  border  of  Christian  orthodoxy,  if  they  do  not 
cross  it.  Perhaps  we  may  rather  see  in  the  words 
an  anticipation,  a  wonderful  prolepsis,  in  the  divine 
thought  of  the  Speaker.  That  thought  is  consistent. 
He  says  not  "I  go,"  but  "I  come/'  or  more  literally, 
in  the  Hebrew,  "/  have  come,"  as  one  who  is  already 
in  the  region  to  which  He  wills  to  descend.  In  the 
same  sense,  surely,  He  says  "O  my  God,"  as  if  He 
had  already  taken  on  Him  the  nature  in  which  He 
was  to  be  able  to  say,  "We  know  what  we  worship/'* 
and  to  cry  "Eli,  Eli"  from  the  Cross.  It  is  the  Son, 
submitting  and  self-consecrating,  even  upon  the 
throne.  It  is  God  the  Son  of  God,  giving  there  this 
infinite  example  of  the  glory  of  a  holy  surrender  and 
service,  illustrating  with  the  light  unapproachable 
the  bliss  and  perfect  freedom  of  a  true  Thy  will  be 
done. 

Many  an  echo  from  earth  has  answered  that 
heavenly  Voice.  One  after  another,  sinful  men  in 
their  great  need  have  come  to  the  Son  of  God,  to  be 
accepted  by  Him  and  united  to  Him.  They  have 
been  made  one  with  Him  in  the  double  union  of 
righteousness  and  of  life.  They  have  received  His 
merit,  the  justification  which  the  "Head,  once 
wounded,"  wrought  out  for  the  members.  But  also 
they  have  been  filled  with  His  Spirit,  the  Spirit  of 
*  John  iv.  24. 


ioo   SELF-CONSECRATION  OF  CHRIST. 


the  Son,  "which  they  that  believe  on  Him  receive" 
out  of  His  immeasurable  fulness.  And  in  the  power 
of  that  uniting  and  possessing  Spirit  they  have 
found,  in  their  complete  weakness,  capacity  to  tread, 
in  measure,  in  His  steps.  Many  a  human  heart  in 
receiving  Christ  has  experienced  as  fact  what 
seemed  once  an  incredible,  or  even  a  repellent,  dream, 
that  it  is  good  to  be  not  our  own.  It  has  discovered 
the  blessedness  of  an  unreserved  submission,  and 
obedience,  and  servitude  to  the  will  of  God;  the 
sober  truth  of  the  old  confession,  Tibi  servire  est 
regnare;  the  strange  but  genuine  joy  involved  and 
conveyed  in  the  full  acceptance  of  that  rule  of  life 
given  us  by  the  Apostle,  "Whether  we  live,  we  live 
unto  the  Lord ;  and  whether  we  die,  we  die  unto  the 
Lord ;  whether  we  live  therefore  or  die,  we  die  unto 
the  Lord;  whether  we  live  therefore  or  die,  we  are 
the  Lord's.*  Tersteegen's  hymn,  "O  allersusste 
Gottesville,"  gives  utterance  not  to  his  own  soul  only, 
but  to  innumerable  others  of  the  past  and  of  this 
hour: 

"Thou  sweet,  beloved  Will  of  God, 

My  anchor-ground,  my  fortress-hill, 
My  spirit's  silent  fair  abode — 
In  thee  I  hide  me,  and  am  still." 

Fe'nelon's  dying  whisper,  summing  up  his  life, 
*  Rom.  xiv.  8. 


SELF-CONSECRATION  OF  CHRIST.  101 

Fiat  voluntas  tua,  is  not  his  only,  but  that  of  all  true 

disciples.    Guyon's  assurance  is  as  good  for  us  as  it 

was  for  her  two  centuries  ago: 

"Yield  to  the  Lord  with  simple  heart, 
All  that  thou  hast  and  all  thou  art; 
Renounce  all  strength  but  strength  divine, 
And  peace  shall  be  for  ever  thine." 

But  these  inmost  spiritual  joys  of  the  Christian, 
born  out  of  the  depth  of  a  true  surrender  to  the  will 
of  God,  are  not  original,  but  derived.  They  are  all 
descendants,  and,  as  it  were,  reverberations  of  that 
divine  and  primal  joy  of  the  Son  when  He  said,  on 
the  throne,  in  view  of  His  descent:  "Lo,  I  have 
come,  to  do  Thy  will,  O  My  God;  I  am  content  to 
do  it;  yea,  Thy  law  is  within  My  heart." 

It  is  a  thing  indeed  for  wonder  and  for  worship, 
to  see  here  the  law  of  holiness  and  happiness  for 
the  disciple  found  first  in  its  glorious  idea  within  the 
Godhead  itself.  The  eternal  relations  of  the  Holy 
Trinity  make  the  archetype  of  all  created  goodness. 
Within  that  secret  place  where  the  One  is  Three 
and  the  Three  are  One,  the  bliss,  the  naKapibr^*  of 
Godhead,  includes  the  blessedness  of  surrender; 
"I  delight  to  do  Thy  will." 

As  we  listen  from  below  to  this  heavenly  colloquy 
of  sending  and  of  submission,  the  Apostle  stands 
beside  us,  with  his  Philippian  Letter,  and  bids  us 
*  I  Tim.  i.  2. 


102    SELF-CONSECRATION  OF  CHRIST. 


read  its  message,  and  there  learn  in  solemn  detail 
what  this,  "Lo,  I  come,"  was  to  be  for  Him  who  ut- 
tered it.  We  open  his  second  chapter,  and  we  read 
how  "Christ  Jesus  looked  not  upon  His  own  things, 
but  upon  the  things  of  others."  "Being  as  He  was 
in  the  form  of  God" — iv  p.0p<pv  GeoO  inr&pXw — in  the 
reality  and  glory  of  the  Eternal  Nature,  "He  counted 
it  not  a  plunderer's  spoil,  His  equality  with  God 
He  did  not  deal  with  that  supreme  and  rightful  Dig- 
nity as  a  thing  to  be  used  jealousy  and  for  Himself. 
"He  made  Himself  void,  by  taking  on  Him  Form 

of  Bondservant."           iidvwo-ev  eavrbv,  px>p<t>r\v  doGkov  \afiuv. 

He  entered  upon  the  conditions  and  experience  of 
human  bond-service.  He  stooped  under  the  yoke 
of  that  absolute  and  obligatory  service  to  the 
Heavenly  Father  which  is  due  from  the  created  na- 
ture. He  came  to  be  Man,  and  also  to  seem  Man — 
4v  o/ioiu/xaTt  ivepdnruv  yev6p.evos  — to  be  Man,  undisguised 
and  open.  And,  so  being,  "He  obeyed,"  and 
still  obeyed.  He  carried  out  the  consecration 
uttered  in  heaven  into  all  the  humble  and  all  the 
awful  experiences  of  manhood  and  of  earth.  He 
obeyed —  i^xpi  6a.v6.Tov  — "to  the  length  of  death ;"  the 
final  submission  was  rendered  when  "He  hid  not 
His  face  from  shame  and  spitting,"  and  stretched 
forth  His  hands,  and  "made  His  soul  an  offering  for 
sin,"  and  died  "the  death  of  the  Cross." 


SELF-CONSECRATION  OF  CHRIST.  103 


Let  our  Christmas  contemplation  send  us  to 
weigh  again  that  familiar  but  inexhaustible  para- 
graph of  the  Philippians.  We  have  heard  the 
fortieth  Psalm;  it  gives  us  the  purpose  of  the 
obedient  Redeemer,  as  it  was  spoken  out  in  the 
heaven  of  heavens.  St.  Paul  in  the  message  to 
Philippi  gives  us  that  also.  But  he  goes  on  instantly 
to  dilate  on  the  Lord's  action  upon  His  purpose.  He 
leads  us  to  see  Him  in  His  historical  assumption  of 
our  nature,  as  He  took  it  on  Him,  and  with  it  all  its 
essential  relations  to  the  claims  of  God.  He  calls 
us  to  watch  Him  walking  with  men  as  the  Servant 
of  God,  till  He  walks  at  length,  in  the  path  of  an 
absolute  surrender,  to  the  encounter  with  human 
sin,  to  the  bearing  of  human  guilt,  to  the  endurance 
of  the  divine  sentence — to  the  shame,  the  horror, 
the  agony,  of  "the  accursed  Tree." 

And  St.  Paul,  more  explicitly  than  the  Psalm,  as 
was  fitting,  reminds  us  how  the  great  Consecrator 
of  Himself  to  the  Father's  will  thought  all  the  while 
of  man  as  well  as  of  God.  True,  the  inmost  and 
ruling  intention  of  that  wonderful  obedience  was 
the  doing  of  the  Father's  will  as  such,  the  glorifica- 
tion of  the  Father  in  the  doing  of  His  will.  But 
the  context  and  argument  of  the  Apostle  remind  us 
that,  under  that  supreme  intention,  the  thought  of 
"us  men  and  our  salvation"  was  as  perfectly  present 


104    SELF-CONSECRATION  OF  CHRIST. 


to  the  exalted  Christ  as  if  there  had  been  nothing 
else  to  think  of  upon  the  throne.  For  how  does 
St.  Paul  come,  in  Philippians  ii.,  to  speak  of  the  self- 
surrender  of  the  Son  at  all  ?  It  is  for  a  purpose  as 
human  and  as  practical  as  possible.  It  is  to  bring 
it  home  to  the  believer  that  he  is  to  "look  not  upon 
his  own  things  but  upon  the  things  of  others." 
This  the  Apostle  presses  home  upon  the  souls  of  his 
converts,  in  the  true  manner  of  the  Gospel,  not  by 
an  ethical  abstract,  but  by  the  glorious  Christian 
concrete — by  the  motive  of  the  love  and  of  the  work 
of  Christ. 

To  look  upon  the  things  of  others — this,  he  would 
have  us  to  understand,  as  far  as  ever  we  can  under- 
stand it — this  was  what  Christ  Jesus  did  when  He 
dealt  as  He  did  with  His  "Equality,"  and  took  on 
Him  the  nature  in  which  He  was  to  serve  the  will  of 
God,  even  unto  death.  He  was  thinking  all  the  while 
of  us.  He  looked  upon  our  things.  He  cared — 
oh,  how  greatly  did  He  care ! — for  us. 

I  have  heard  it  said  of  that  true  scholar  and  most 
faithful  servant  of  God,  the  late  Professor  Schole- 
field,  whom  I  still  see  and  hear  in  his  pulpit,  as  one 
of  the  memories  of  my  childhood,  that  worshipers 
in  his  Church  of  St.  Michael,  in  this  town,  observed 
that  he  never  could  get  through  the  Nicene  Creed,  at 
the  Holy  Table,  without  an  audible  faltering  of  the 


SELF-CONSECRATION  OF  CHRIST.  105 


voice  when  he  recited  the  words,  "Who  for  us  men 
and  for  our  salvation  came  down  from  heaven." 
Scholefield  was  by  no  means  a  man  of  effusive  and 
demonstrative  emotions.  His  manner  was,  in  fact, 
on  common  occasions,  somewhat  reserved  and  cold. 
But  he  lived  near  his  Lord.  He  was  one  who, 
amidst  the  necessary  publicities  of  his  duty,  spent 
much  time  alone  with  Him,  meditating  closely  and 
deeply  upon  redeeming  love.  And  so  he  entered 
into  something  of  the  hidden  depth  of  his  Master's 
heart  and  the  hidden  meaning  of  this  wonderful, 
"Lo,  I  have  come,"  this  "taking  of  the  Bondserv- 
ant's Form." 

As  we  stand  listening  to  the  voice  which  thus, 
even  from  the  divine  glory,  speaks  of  surrender  and 
of  service,  let  us  take  up  the  Scriptures  once  more, 
and  recall  in  shortest  summary  some  of  the  truths 
told  us  by  the  way  through  this  utterance,  "Lo  I 
have  come  to  do  Thy  will." 

i.  First,  the  saying,  taken  in  its  context,  speaks 
of  the  exalted  place  which  the  sacrificial  and  atoning 
Work  of  our  Lord  in  death  holds  in  the  plan  of  Re- 
demption. The  Psalm,  interpreted  by  the  Epistle 
to  the  Hebrews,  puts  this  into  sacred  prominence. 
"I  have  come."  So  speaks  the  eternal  Christ  in 
view  of  the  mystery  of  His  Incarnation:  "I  have 


io6   SELF-CONSECRATION  OF  CHRIST. 


come."  As  if  to  say  that  He  is  already  on  the 
march,  already  in  the  work,  already  taking  genuine 
Manhood  of  a  mortal  Mother,  so  that  the  two 
Natures,  whole  and  perfect,  never  to  be  confused, 
never  to  be  divided,  shall  meet  in  ineffable  union 
under  one  Person,  one  Christ,  that  He  may  be,  and 
may  work,  in  them  both.  But  why  does  He  come, 
as  to  the  immediate  and  urgent  element  of  the  pur- 
pose? What  is  the  aim  set  in  the  foreground  of 
the  eternal  thought,  indicated  in  the  Psalm  and 
developed  in  the  Epistle?  Is  it,  immediately,  to 
knit  up  mankind  together  into  one?  Is  it,  im- 
mediately, to  redeem  the  race  by  Incarnation?  It  is, 
immediately,  to  be  "Sacrifice  and  Offering."  It  is 
to  do  at  last  the  work  which  the  altar,  under  the 
old  law,  could  never  do.  It  is  that  the  Incarnate, 
being  such,  "might  put  away  sins  by  the  sacrifice  of 
Himself."  Such  was  the  first  ruling  purpose  of  the 
Self-Consecration  of  the  Son.  The  Self-Consecrator 
had  in  view,  above  all  things,  His  Death,  His  Sacri- 
fice, His  Expiation,  His  Propitiation.  Psalm,  and 
Hebrews,  and  Philippians,  all,  in  this  matter,  gravi- 
tate upon  the  Crucifixion.  "A  body  hast  Thou  pre- 
pared Me."  "He  took  share  and  share,  with  His 
brethren,  in  flesh  and  blood,  that  by  means  of  death 
He  might  destroy  him  that  had  the  power  of  death." 
"Being  the  brightness  of  the  Father's  glory,  by  Him- 


SELF-CONSECRATION  OF  CHRIST.  107 


self  he  purged  our  sins."  "He  became  obedient,  even 
to  the  length  of  the  death  of  the  Cross." 

ii.  Secondly,  our  Scriptures  are  eloquent  of  the 
pain  and  yet  joy  of  the  untold  Humiliation  of  the 
Lord.  They  tell  us  of  His  willingness  to  be  made 
like  us,  with  a  likeness  that  should  be  no  trope  or 
figure,  but  a  reality  to  its  depths.  They  reveal  His 
divinely  free  consent,  in  the  full  light  of  God,  to 
enter  personally  within  the  essential  and  sinless  lim- 
itations of  humanity.  He  willed,  as  Man,  to  ex- 
perience what  is  meant  by  growth  and  by  develop- 
ment, what  it  is  to  weep  and  to  wonder,  what  it 
should  be  to  say,  "Thy  will  be  done,"  not  only  in 
heaven,  as  the  Son  Eternal,  but  as  the  Son  of  Man, 
under  the  olives  of  Gethsemane.  He  willed  to  cry, 
when  the  last  blackness  gathered  round  the  Cross, 
to  Him  whose  will  He  was  wholly  content  to  do, 
"Why  hast  Thou  forsaken  Me?"  He  willed  to 
commit  the  outgoing  Human  Spirit  into  His  hands, 
in  the  awfulness  of  human  death. 

Are  we  to  go  further?  Shall  we  say  that  He  was 
then  consenting  also  to  other  limitations?  Was 
He  committing  Himself  to  such  restrictions  of  in- 
tellectual and,  we  must  add  (for  this  cannot  be 
wholly  excluded),  of  moral  insight,  as  would  make 
it  possible  that  He  should  share  with  His  brethren 
not  only  their  fatigues  and  sorrows,  but  their  illu- 


io8    SELF-CONSECRATION  OF  CHRIST. 


sions  and  mistakes  ?  'Etctvuaev  iavrbv,  says  the  Epistle ; 
"He  made  Himself  void."  And  the  *c&««s,"the  Ex- 
inanition,"  became  an  almost  synonym  with  the 
Church  Fathers  for  "the  days  of  the  flesh"  of  the 
humiliated  Lord.  "He  was  in  truth  and  nature 
God,"  says  the  Alexandrian  Cyril,  "even  before  the 
times  of  the  Kenosis;  and,  again,  "He  became  Man 
and  humbled  Himself  into  Kenosis."  Now,  did  that 
Kenosis  actually  imply,  what  certainly  the  Fathers 
little  suspected  it  to  do  when  they  used  the  term, 
the  submission  of  our  Redeemer  to  share,  as  a 
Teacher,  the  fallibility  of  men  ?  It  is  not  willingly 
that  I  touch  that  supremely  important  problem.  But 
its  present  prominence  in  Christian  thought  seems 
to  forbid  us,  if  we  approach  the  region  at  all,  quite 
to  pass  it  by.  Only  two  suggestions  would  I  offer 
here,  in  much  humility,  but  with  a  deep  persuasion 
that  the  matter  lies  close  to  the  vitals  of  the  Faith. 

For  one  thing,  it  would  seem  to  be  a  grave  mis- 
take of  thought,  when  we  are  dealing  with  a  Humili- 
ation undertaken  for  a  supremely  benignant  end, 
accepted  in  order  to  the  highest  benefit  of  man,  to 
class  under  its  idea  a  voluntary,  a  foreseeing  consent 
to  be  capable  of  mistakes,  and  so,  inevitably,  to  be 
capable  of  leading  others  to  be  mistaken,  too.  To 
own  that  the  Lord  submitted,  in  a  sublime  surrender, 
to  the  necessities  of  weakness  and  of  sorrow,  and 


SELF-CONSECRATION  OF  CHRIST.  109 


even  that  He  abnegated  awhile  the  consciousness 
and  exercise  of  Omniscience — this  is  one  thing.  But 
it  is  a  quite  different  thing  when  He  is  conceived  to 
have  consented  not  to  know,  as  a  Teacher,  that  He 
did  not  know — not  to  be  aware  whether  He  was  or 
was  not  mistaken  in  whatever  He  claimed  the  right 
to  say.  Such  a  consent,  if  conceivable,  would  not  be 
easy  to  explain  as  part  of  a  benignant  purpose,  an 
element  in  a  Humiliation  divinely  calculated  for  the 
illumination  of  man. 

The  passage  before  us,  in  the  Psalm  and  the 
Epistle,  seems  to  give  intimations  just  to  the  con- 
trary of  the  theory  referred  to.  For  it  indicates  to 
us,  by  its  previous  and  its  following  context,  that 
the  Christ  in  His  heavenly  glory  had  already  full  in 
view  the  ancient  Ritual,  and  descended  at  the 
Father's  will  not  only  to  meet  its  inevitable  defect, 
but  to  fulfil  its  import,  as  all  true  and  all  of  God. 
What  He  thought  of  the  old  Order  in  the  days  of 
His  flesh,  what  He  then  said  and  did  about  the  Law 
and  about  the  Prophets,  was  thus  but  the  continua- 
tion of  His  thought  about  them  upon  the  throne. 

For  another  thing,  if  we  seek  the  true  Scriptural 
import  of  the  Kenosis,  the  Philippian  passage  (its 
original)  must  be  consulted;  and  it  seems  to  direct 
us  in  a  line  just  opposite  to  that  which  would  make 
fallibility  an  element  in  the  Lord's  Humiliation. 


no    SELF-CONSECRATION  OF  CHRIST. 


"EKiuuuev  iavrbv,  fj.op<pr]v  5oi\ov  Xa^iiv.  If  we  interpret  the 
Greek  phrase  by  well-recognized  rule,  we  must 
take  the  verb  and  the  participle  as  contribut- 
ing to  give  us,  from  two  sides,  one  fact.  "He  made 
Himself  void,"  not  anyhow,  but  thus — "taking 
Bond-servant's  Form."  The  "Avoidance"  was,  in 
fact,  just  this — the  "taking."  It  was  the  assump- 
tion of  the  creaturely  Nature,  the  becoming,  in 
Augustine's  words,  "Creature,  as  He  was  Man" — 
quod  ad  Hominem,  Creatura;  and  the  assumption  of 
it  in  just  this  respect,  that  in  it  He  became,  by  the 
fact  of  it,  —  AoDXos  — Bond-servant.  But  what  is 
the  implication  of  that  unique,  absolute,  unreserved, 
unhindered  Bond-service  of  the  Incarnate  Son? 
What  does  it  say  to  us  in  respect  of  His  capacity  to 
do  the  Father's  work,  and  convey  His  mind,  and 
deliver  His  message  ?  The  absoluteness  of  this  sub- 
jection of  the  perfect  Bond-servant  gives  us  war- 
rant not  of  the  precariousness  but  of  the  perfection 
of  the  conveyance  of  the  Sender's  mind.  "He 
whom  God  hath  sent  speaketh  the  words  of  God." 

His  own  servant  Paul  was  one  day  to  claim  au- 
thority as  messenger  just  because  of  the  intensity 
of  his  slavery.  "Let  no  man  trouble  me,  for  I  bear 
in  my  body  the  stigmata  of  the  Master,  Jesus"  (Gal. 
vi.  17).  The  supreme  Bond-servant,  the  Bearer  of 
the  stigmata  of  the  cross,  has  right  then,  indeed,  to 


SELF-CONSECRATION  OF  CHRIST. 


in 


claim  our  unreserved,  our  worshiping  silence  as 
He  speaks.  He,  in  perfect  relation  to  His  Sender, 
perfectly  conveys  His  Sender's  mind.  '  He  says 
nothing  but  what  his  sender  bids  Him  say. 

But  let  us  turn  from  discussion,  and  end  where 
we  set  out,  in  faith  and  in  adoration,  before  the  self- 
consecrating  Saviour. 

We  are  keeping  the  festival  of  joy.  The  splendor 
of  God,  once  poured  upon  the  field  of  the  shepherds, 
shines  for  ever  upon  this  day.  The  great  carol  of 
the  warrior-angels,  the  choiring  heavenly  army, 
cTpaTiii  oip&vtos,  sounds  on  for  ever  in  our  winter 
sky.   For  us  men  God  is  made  Man : 

"Thou  art  my  flesh  and  bone, 
Thou  dost  my  kindred  own, 
Thou  Light  of  the  eternal  Morn ; 

And  sitting  at  Thy  feet, 

I  find  it  passing  sweet 
To  think  that  I  too  was  of  woman  born." 

But  the  roots  of  our  Christian*  joy  are  watered  with 
the  sorrows  and  the  sacrifices  of  our  Redeemer.  They 
cost  him  dear.  They  involved  His  infinite  Humilia- 
tion. As  we  rejoice,  let  it  be  with  that  thought  in 
our  souls.  Let  us  bless  Him  with  the  love  of  peni- 
tents ;  let  us  follow  Him  with  the  love  of  witnessing 
disciples.  "Lo,  I  have  come."  So  said  the  Son  of 
God,  in  view  of  His  Cradle  and  of  His  Cross,  as 


ii2   SELF-CONSECRATION  OF  CHRIST. 


He  saw  them  from  above  all  the  heavens.  "Lo,  I 
have  come  to  do  Thy  will."  And  we  are  His.  We 
are,  through  His  grace,  in  Him.  Then  be  it  ours, 
this  day,  this  Birthday,  to  say  the  like,  in  our  little 
measure,  as  if  we  had  never  said  it  before,  for  His 
sake  and  in  His  name.  For  trial,  for  humiliation, 
for  the  death  of  self-will,  for  whatever  may  be  for 
us  the  cross,  let  us,  His  members,  draw  from  Him 
the  power  to  say,  "I  have  come,"  and  to  "delight 
to  do  the  will  of  Him  that  sent  us,  and  to  finish  His 
work." 


VII 

THE  INDIVIDUAL  AND  GOD 

Preached  in  the  University  Church,  Cambridge 
"But  it  is  good  for  me  to  draw  near  to  God." — Ps.  lxxiii.  28. 
"But  as  for  me,  approach  to  God,  nearness  to  God, 
for  me  is  good."  So  we  may  render  the  Psalmist's 
original  words,  with  due  attention  to  their  emphasis 
upon  the  person  of  the  speaker.  'E/xoi  a*  t6  irpo<TKo\\d.a9ai 
T<?  Qev  &ya66v  iarc.  so  reads  the  Septuagint.  And  the 
Vulgate  follows:  Mihi  autem  adhserere  Deo  bonum 
est. 

The  whole  stress  of  the  sentence  lies  upon  the 
individual  and  independent  decision.  Let  other 
people,  let  the  whole  world,  if  it  will,  retire  into  a 
distance  from  God,  and  live  apart  and  to  themselves. 
My  choice  is  made,  definite,  irrevocable,  and,  above 
all,  my  own.  To  approach  God,  to  abide  close  to 
God,  face  to  Face,  spirit  to  Spirit,  love  to  Love,  per- 
son to  Person — this  for  me  is  good.  This  is  my 
summum  bonum,  nearness  to  Him. 

I  ask  to  address  you  this  afternoon  upon  some 
relations  of  the  individual  to  God  in  Christ,  relations 
of  spiritual  access  and  intercourse.    The  theme  is 

"3 


ii4       THE  INDIVIDUAL  AND  GOD. 


high,  the  ground  is  holy;  let  me  remember  and 
beware.  But  the  matter  is  quite  as  practical  as  it  is 
sacred ;  it  is  of  the  utmost  consequence  to  the  actual 
Christian  life  that  we  should  think  aright  upon  it, 
and  put  what  we  think  into  use.  Moreover,  the 
question  is,  if  I  do  not  greatly  mistake,  particularly 
timely  to  some  exigencies  of  our  time.  Fashions  of 
thought  are  largely  abroad  which  call  for  a  temperate 
but  firm  reassertion,  now  and  again,  of  the  indi- 
vidualistic aspect  of  the  spiritual  life;  otherwise, 
even  its  collective  interests  will  suffer  loss. 

Let  me  speak  first  upon  this  latter  and  less  general 
topic;  it  will  lead  us  directly  on  to  what  is  more 
abiding  and  universal. 

Who  does  not  know,  then,  that  strong  and  mani- 
fold drifts  of  opinion  around  us  set  towards  all  that 
is  corporate  and  collective?  They  touch  and  draw 
us,  like  the  secret  currents  of  the  ocean,  in  every  kind 
of  connection,  social,  civil,  and  religious.  In  religion 
the  tendency  is  everywhere,  in  one  mode  of  it  or 
another.  Here  and  there  the  teacher,  numerously 
followed,  lays  his  insistence  upon  collective  "Hu- 
manity," as  the  object  of  Redemption,  as  the  organ 
of  Revelation.  In  Humanity  he  sees  the  developing 
manifestation  of  God,  who  inbreathes  and  informs  it 
with  His  Spirit,  and  whose  eternal  Word  is  its 
Archetype  and  its  Sum.    The  term  sounds  on  per- 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  AND  GOD. 


ii5 


petually  through  such  teaching,  like  the  theme  of  a 
fugue ;  we  are  occupied  and  impressed  with  the  life 
and  growth  of  Humanity,  its  liberation  from  evil,  its 
education  into  advancing  stages  of  good.  The  tend- 
ency is  to  apply  to  it  the  whole  biblical  vocabulary 
of  salvation,  from  the  first  purpose  of  eternal  mercy 
to  the  glory  that  is  to  be  revealed. 

"The  Kingdom  of  God,"  again,  is  a  term  charac- 
teristic of  whole  types  of  influential  thought ;  I  need 
only  name,  for  one,  that  of  the  school  of  Ritschl. 
It  is  a  term  wholly  scriptural;  its  true  significance 
therefore,  of  course,  is  altogether  for  the  highest 
good.  But  the  risk  is,  a  use  of  it  ruled  not  by 
Scripture  but  by  speculation.  As  a  fact,  it  has  been 
used  largely  to  promote  conceptions  of  man's  rela- 
tion to  God  under  which  the  individual  sinks  and  is 
merged  in  "the  Kingdom."  He  must  seek  his  bless- 
ings, if  he  is  to  be  blest,  only  as  he  lives  in  its  life, 
only,  if  I  may  say  so,  through  its  large  mediation. 

In  other  quarters  (though  all  these  types  of 
thought  often  cross  each  other's  borders)  the  great 
word,  Church,  is  made  the  resonant  theme  of  all  the 
music.  No  matter,  for  the  moment,  what  definition 
in  detail  is  given  to  the  word;  it  denotes  a  sacred 
Society,  corporate  and  collective.  The  idea  of  such 
an  august  entity  fairly  rules  whole  theologies,  and 
meets  us  at  all  turns.    So  presented,  the  Church  as 


ii6        THE  INDIVIDUAL  AND  GOD. 


such  is  the  true  object  and  recipient  of  salvation,  the 
seer,  the  teacher,  of  its  message.  It  is  the  avenue 
to  Christ  the  shrine ;  the  way  to  Christ,  the  end.  Nay, 
rather,  it,  in  its  collectivity,  is  so  joined  to  Him,  so 
filled,  so  impregnated  with  Him,  that  we  cannot  as 
individuals  touch  Him  with  a  sure  touch  except 
through  it ;  scarcely,  on  the  other  hand,  can  we  touch 
it  without  therefore  touching  Him. 

So  I  have  heard,  with  deep  attention,  devout  ex- 
pounders exhibit  and  enforce  the  theory.  They 
repelled  the  suggestion  that  their  doctrine  gave 
prominence  to  the  Church  at  the  expense  of  the 
supreme  prominence  of  her  Lord.  They  contended 
that  so  has  He  given  Himself  to  her,  so  has  He,  for 
our  blessing,  lodged  Himself  in  her,  that  in  her  we 
have  Him.  It  is  difficult  to  say  too  much  of  the 
Church,  just  because  of  Jesus  Christ. 

Naturally,  under  such  convictions  the  vocabulary 
of  salvation  tends  to  be  applied  prevalently  to  this 
great  collective  existence.  The  process  of  grace 
from  eternity  to  eternity  is  largely  viewed  as  taking 
place  upon  the  Body  rather  than  upon  the  member, 
or,  however,  upon  the  member  only  through  the 
Body.  Rather  the  Church  than  the  soul,  the  man, 
is  the  primary  object  of  promise  and  of  gift. 

The  tendencies  thus  roughly  indicated  carry  in 
them,  every  one,  powerful  elements  of  truth.  Mere 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  AND  GOD.  117 


individualism,  if  it  means  the  individual's  isolation 
into  self-sufficiency  and  self-will,  is  indeed  a  fatal 
fallacy.  Alike  for  him  and  all  that  is  about  him,  it 
is  simply  evil.  As  surely  as  the  man  was  consti- 
tuted not  for  himself  but  for  God,  so  surely  was  he 
constituted  not  for  himself  but  for  others.  So  con- 
science intimates ;  so  Revelation  affirms.  The  Bible 
almost  opens  with  the  divine  assertion  that  it  is 
not  good  for  the  man  to  be  alone.  Its  last  veil  falls 
upon  the  fair  vision  of  a  Society  which  is  at  once 
the  Bride  with  her  Husband  and  the  City  with  its 
King.  The  history  of  Redemption  develops  all 
along  the  magnificent  idea  of  a  hallowed  Commun- 
ity, related  as  such  to  God,  receiving  as  such  His 
blessings,  strengthening  itself  by  the  fellowship  of 
its  members  before  Him,  guarding  His  message  of 
grace  and  hope,  and  commissioned  to  convey  it  to 
the  world.  "Glorious  things  are  spoken"  of  the 
Church  of  Christ.  In  the  Epistles  the  words  labor 
with  the  effort  to  express  its  excellency.  It  is  the 
Body  of  the  exalted  Head,  the  Organ  for  His  opera- 
tion. It  is  the  Spouse,  the  Object  of  His  divine 
complacency,  and  of  the  vast  Sacrifice  of  His  love, 
nourished  and  cherished,  and,  at  last,  glorified  by 
Him.  Race,  and  age,  and  rank,  and  sex,  are  all 
merged  in  this  wonderful  aggregate :  "You  are  all 
one,  one  being,  eU  i<ne,  in  Christ  Jesus."* 
*  Gal.  iii.  28. 


n8        THE  INDIVIDUAL  AND  GOD. 


The  non-individual  side  of  Christian  life  is  indeed 
prominent  in  the  Scriptures.  It  may  be  distorted, 
it  may  be  travestied,  but  it  is  a  vital  fact.  Men, 
the  best  of  men,  may  attempt  impossible  definitions 
of  the  Church,  but  the  Church  is  a  mighty  factor  in 
the  plan  of  God.  Things  quite  unpractical  may  be 
said  about  cohesion  and  unity.  They  may  be 
preached,  in  their  most  exterior  aspects,  as  almost 
Alpha  and  Omega,  as  if  collectivity  of  system  were  a 
more  vital  thing  than  the  eternal  truths  which  touch 
most  directly  the  personal  conscience  and  the  per- 
sonal will.  Yet  cohesion  and  unity  are  not  only  noble 
principles  to  entertain ;  they  make  altogether  for  our 
practical  blessing,  temperately  understood.  The  dis- 
location of  Christendom,  the  collision  of  Christians, 
can  never,  as  such,  be  according  to  the  mind  of  God. 

So  those  watchwords,  familiar  in  our  day — 
"Church  life,"  "Church  work,"  "Corporate  action" 
— are  abundantly  salutary  in  their  place.  They  have 
a  mission  against  the  evils  inseparable  from  a 
thoughtless  or  a  self-willed  isolation,  reminding  the 
individual  that  he  cannot  possibly  live  aright  if  he 
lives  and  works  in  a  would-be  spiritual  life,  related 
only  to  himself.  Not  only  must  his  usefulness 
greatly  suffer  if  he  labors,  ever  so  hard,  quite  out- 
side constituted  connection;  his  own  spiritual  inter- 
ests, his  own  innermost  man,  must  bear  loss,  if  he 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  AND  GOD. 


119 


elects  to  be  either  the  hermit  or  the  free-lance  in- 
stead of  the  member  of  the  Body. 

Yet,  with  all  this  full  in  view,  I  think  it  is  season- 
able to  emphasize  the  other  side  of  things.  I  spoke 
in  passing  of  distortions,  travesties,  impossibilities, 
sometimes  to  be  met  with  in  the  advocacy  of  Church 
life  and  work.  It  is  so.  Definitions  or  descriptions 
of  the  Church  are  often  attempted  which  square 
neither  with  reason  nor  Scripture.  In  the  nature  of 
the  case,  in  this  world  of  the  Fall,  ideal  and  actual 
never  coincide.  So  Augustine  long  ago  was  con- 
strained to  own,  when  Donatism  pressed  the  matter 
on  his  mind.  "Not  only  in  eternity,  but  now,"  he 
says,*  "hypocrites"  (the  unreal)  "are  not  associ- 
ated with  Christ,  however  they  may  seem  to  be  in 
His  Church."  Forgetting  this,  good  men  have  tried 
to  define  the  Church  in  terms  which  cannot  but 
burst  and  yield  when  compared  with  the  great 
Scriptural  tests,  negative  and  positve,  of  incorpora- 
tion into  the  Lord.  And  so  is  invited  a  resistance 
which  runs  easily  into  an  opposite  and  really  indi- 
vidualistic extreme.  For  the  thought  has  tended 
towards  a  spiritual  tyranny,  in  which  the  Church 
becomes  the  autocrat  of  conscience,  and  even  the 
temperate  assertion  of  conscience  against  the  autoc- 
racy is  taken  as  a  kind  of  treason.  So,  two  cen- 
turies ago,  the  Roman  community,  ruled  by  the 

*  De  Doctrina  Christiana,  iii.  32. 


i2o        THE  INDIVIDUAL  AND  GOD. 


Jesuit  school,  strove  only  too  successfully  to  crush 
the  Jansenist  protest,  made  by  some  of  the  noblest 
Christians  France,  or  Europe,  ever  saw — Pascal 
among  them;  reluctant  and  distressed  assertors  of 
conscience  against  the  corporate  idea.  That  case 
represents — how  many  other  cases  of  the  past,  and 
of  today ! 

Great  is  the  place  and  function  of  the  Church ! 
But  that  place  is  not  between  the  soul  and  the 
Redeemer.  It  is  in  the  stress  it  has  laid  upon  that 
truth  that  the  Protestant  principle  has  done  one  of  its 
noblest  services  to  the  world.  I  found  many  years 
ago  a  testimony  to  this  in  an  unbiased  quarter,  in 
an  essay  by  the  late  Mr.  J.  S.  Mill,  on  the  Positive 
Philosophy,  printed  in  the  Westminster  Review  of 
April,  1865.  Mill  examines  Comte's  estimate  of 
types  of  Christianity,  and  takes  him  to  task  for  his 
complete  misreading  of  Protestantism,  as  if  it  were 
only  negative,  only  destructive ;  a  mistake  made  by  a 
great  many  persons  besides  Comte,  but  only  possible 
for  them,  as  for  him,  by  defect  of  knowledge. 
"Comte,"  says  Mill,  "  misses  one  of  the  most  im- 
portant facts  connected  with  Protestantism — its  re- 
markable efficacy,  as  contrasted  with  Catholicism" 
(he  means  Romanism),  "in  cultivating  the  intelli- 
gence and  the  conscience  of  the  individual  believer. 
The  feeling  of  a  direct  responsibility  of  the  individ- 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  AND  GOD.  121 


ual  immediately  to  God  is  almost  wholly  a  creation 
of  Protestantism.  Even  when  Protestants  were 
nearly  as  persecuting  as  Catholics  (quite  as  much 
so  they  never  were),  still  they  maintained  that  the 
true  belief  was  not  to  be  accepted  from  a  priest,  but 
to  be  sought  and  found  by  the  believer ;  and  that  no 
one  could  answer  to  God  for  him;  he  must  answer 
for  himself."  And  Mill,  standing  himself  outside 
all  creeds  as  he  then  stood  (but  I  have  heard  pri- 
vately what  gives  me  right  to  think  he  died  in  the 
faith  of  Christ) ,  goes  on  to  comment,  as  well  he  may, 
upon  the  power  of  this  view  of  things  to  give  stuff 
and  fiber  to  character,  personal  and  national,  wher- 
ever it  prevails. 

Yes ;  let  the  sacred  function  of  the  Community  be 
what  it  may,  it  must  stand  aside,  after  all,  and  leave 
the  ground  open,  when  the  soul,  the  mysterious  per- 
sonality, the  man,  rises  up  and  goes  in  to  claim  in 
Christ  its  access  to  the  Father,  awful,  blissful  and 
in  secret.  "As  for  me,  nearness  to  God  for  me  is 
good."  For  this,  man  was  made  in  his  creation, 
waking  up  from  the  inscrutable  mystery  of  its  pro- 
cess to  the  mighty  fact  that  he  was  in  the  image  of 
his  Maker.  For  this  he  was  made  again  out  of  the 
death  and  ruins  of  the  Fall.  Because  of  the  Cross, 
and  in  the  power  of  the  Spirit,  he  is  admitted,  he  is 
entitled,  he  is  welcomed  as  with  open  arms  to  an 


122       THE  INDIVIDUAL  AND  GOD. 


intercourse  with  God,  mediated  to  him  by  the  Son 
of  God  alone,  nothing  between.  Lift  high  the  cur- 
tains of  the  Holiest,  for  he  must  enter;  yea,  they 
are  already  rent  from  the  top  to  the  bottom,  that  he 
may  pass  within  them,  and  stand  with  unveiled  face 
before  the  secret  glory,  and  speak  his  whole 
heart  out  to  the  heart  of  the  Eternal,  i^rk  irapprqaias, 
"with  the  liberty  of  saying  anything"  to  his  Father. 
Let  no  Society,  though  divinely  founded,  no 
ordinance,  though  of  Christ's  own  giving,  yet 
needing  mortal  ministration,  no  sacred  Class  or 
Order,  however  apostolic  in  succession,  pass  in  with 
him  there.  True,  they  can,  and  they  should,  help 
him  thither,  show  him  the  avenue,  point  him  to  the 
door,  reassure  him  of  the  Tightness  of  his  entrance. 
But  he  enters,  himself  alone,  or  rather,  himself  as 
one  with  the  one  eternal  Priest  who  stands  there  in 
His  own  right,  who  has  offered  once  for  ever  the 
sacrifice  of  peace,  and  now  for  ever  is  occupied  with 
that  other  and  resultant  function  of  His  solitary  and 
sublime  sacerdotium — to  be  man's  open  entrance  in 
to  God. 

The  whole  record  of  Redemption  is  full  of  that 
entrance  in.  Such  was  the  divine  delight  in  it  that, 
ages  before  the  historic  and,  as  it  were,  public  open- 
ing of  the  door,  there  was  already  a  wonderful 
anticipation.    The  saints  of  the  Old  Law  are  found 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  AND  GOD.  123 


speaking  their  souls  out  to  the  Lord  as  the  breath 
and  habit  of  their  lives — nothing  between,  absolutely 
nothing,  but  the  fact  of  the  promise  and  the  covenant. 
True,  their  colloquies  with  God  were  of  infinite 
significance  to  the  community.  Abraham  under  the 
Syrian  stars,  Moses  on  the  desert  cliff,  Jeremiah  in 
the  courtyard  in  the  beleaguered  town,  not  only 
supplied  examples  of  individual  "access;"  their  con- 
versations with  heaven  made  links  in  the  story  of 
the  redemption  of  the  world.  But,  none  the  less,  it 
was  in  itself  individual  intercourse,  personal,  direct; 
"nothing  between."  It  was  not  the  individual  ap- 
proaching God  through  the  mediation  of  the  com- 
munity. A  vast  element  in  the  phenomenon  of 
Scripture  is  the  precise  converse ;  the  voice  of  grace 
reaches  the  community  through  the  mediation  of  the 
individual  believer. 

Think  of  the  magnificent  illustration  of  this  in  the 
Old  Testament,  in  the  Book  of  Psalms.  No  doubt 
the  Psalms  for  the  Jewish  Church,  as  for  the  Church 
Catholic,  bore  a  liturgical  significance;  they  passed 
into  common  worship ;  they  became  the  voice  of  the 
community  to  God.  And  obviously  many  of  them 
are  public  and  corporate  in  Jheir  form — the  expres- 
sion of  the  experiences  of  the  chosen  Race  in  its 
collective  sins  and  disciplines  and  blessings.  But 
set  these  aside,  they  leave  a  mass  rich  and  wonder- 


124        THE  INDIVIDUAL  AND  GOD. 


ful  of  purely  individual  Psalms,  in  which  rises  just 
the  call  and  cry  of  the  Ego  to  the  Eternal.  "I  have 
trusted  in  Thy  mercy;  my  heart  shall  be  glad  in 
Thy  salvation;"  "I  will  fear  no  evil,  for  Thou  art 
with  me;"  "My  soul  thirsteth  for  the  living  God;" 
"Thou  hast  known  my  soul  in  adversities;"  "I  love 
the  Lord,  because  He  hath  heard  my  voice;"  "Thy 
Word  is  a  lamp  unto  my  feet;"  "Thou  art  my 
portion;"  "As  for  me,  I  will  behold  Thy  face  in 
righteousness;"  "As  for  me,  nearness  to  God  for  me 
is  good." 

Whatever  part  in  the  ages  of  the  Psalmists  was 
played  by  the  order  and  ritual  of  the  Society,  the 
man,  for  his  soul's  inmost  needs,  was  left  alone  with 
God ;  the  servant  went  in  to  his  Master  to  talk  with 
Him,  and  the  door  was  shut. 

To  pass  into  the  New  Testament  in  order  to  study 
individual  converse  with  God  is  to  take  the  clue  of 
a  labyrinth  endless  in  its  depth  and  beauty.  Of  this 
the  words  and  the  works  of  the  Redeemer  alike  are 
full.  "I  will;  be  thou  clean;"  "I  will  in  no  wise 
cast  him  out ;"  "I  will  manifest  myself  to  him."  The 
incidents  of  the  Acts  are  perpetually  individual- 
istic :  the  Eunuch  in  his  carriage,  Cornelius  in  his 
chamber,  Lydia  by  the  river.  Above  all,  we  have 
Saul  of  Tarsus,  the  man  chosen  by  the  Spirit  to 
contribute  a  third  of  its  contents  to  the  New  Testa- 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  AND  GOD.  125 


ment,  and  to  develop  all  that  is  most  comprehensive 
and  collective  in  the  message  of  our  salvation,  but 
led  to  do  all  this  in  modes  of  exposition  where  the 
widest,  the  vastest  principles  come  to  us  alive  and 
pulsating  with  the  experiences  of  the  man  with  God. 
"In  me  there  dwelleth  no  good  thing;"  "I  am  cruci- 
fied with  Christ;"  "Christ  liveth  in  me;"  "He  gave 
Himself  for  me;"  "I  can  do  all  things  in  Him;"  "I 
know  whom  I  have  believed ;"  "He  is  able  to  keep 
my  deposit  against  that  day." 

My  brethren,  this  is  a  magnificent  individualism, 
sanctifying,  beautifying,  vital.  I  hope  I  have  guarded 
myself  from  seeming  to  forget  the  other  side  in  the 
spiritual  life.  I  have  tried  to  label  with  as  legible  a 
censure  as  I  could  the  falsehood  of  the  individualism 
which  means  isolation  to  one's  own  will,  isolation 
even  to  one's  own  soul.  But  this  is  another  thing; 
yea,  in  its  depth  it  is  the  antithesis  to  that.  This  is 
an  isolation  to  God,  in  the  immediate  intercourse  of 
the  regenerate  soul  with  Him,  an  intercourse  whose 
very  possibility  is  denied,  as  you  know,  by  arbitrary 
and  a  priori  speculation,  but  in  vain ;  E  pur  si  muove 
— it  is  an  experienced  fact.  This  is  an  isolation 
which  sends  the  soul  out  again,  filled  and  expanded 
by  His  presence,  to  contribute  to  the  community, 
to  live  no  longer  for  itself,  to  be  at  His  service  in 
others  all  the  day,  aye,  and  to  see  deeper  into  others, 


126        THE  INDIVIDUAL  AND  GOD. 


their  struggles,  their  sorrows,  and  their  sins,  than  it 
ever  could  do  if  it  did  not  know  itself  in  the  light  of 
intercourse  with  God.  For  that  intercourse  there  is 
no  substitute ;  it  knows  no  second-best.  Would  we 
*>be  "men  in  Christ"  indeed?  Then,  "as  for  me, 
nearness  to  God  for  me  is  good." 

More  than  ever  in  our  late  and  troubled  time,  so 
intensely  conscious  in  some  of  its  aspects,  so  super- 
ficial in  others,  the  Christian  must  guard  and  use  his 
personal  "access  with  confidence,"  through  the  Son, 
in  the  Spirit,  to  the  Father. 

He  will  find  his  exercise  of  it  imperiled  from 
many  quarters.  Sometimes,  as  we  have  remembered, 
a  mental  theory  will  try  to  shut  the  door  brusquely 
in  his  face,  with  a  doctrine  of  knowledge  which  is  to 
prove,  forsooth,  that  God  cannot  personally  converse 
with  the  personality  which  He  made  in  His  own 
image.  Sometimes  an  overwrought  ecclesiasticism 
will  not  precisely  bar  the  door,  but  load  it  with  cur- 
tains, offering  rather  the  assistance  of  a  third  party 
to  carry  the  messages  in  and  out.  Far  oftener  the 
obstruction  will  come  from  that  common  disposi- 
tion of  our  period,  with  its  unrest,  its  fatigues,  its 
materialistic  ideals  of  good — the  slack  and  indolent 
disposition  to  "get  our  religion  done  for  us,"  in  one 
way  or  another.  But  it  matters  little,  by  compari- 
son, how  the  temptation  meets  us,  under  what  mask 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  AND  GOD. 


127 


the  watchful  enemy  will  try  to  impede  our  personal 
intercourse  with  the  Everlasting  Friend.  It  is  vital, 
anyhow,  that  we  should  resist,  and  enter  in. 

"Nearness  to  God,"  face  to  face,  is  vital,  if  we 
would  live  the  life  which  alone  is  real,  y  Sm-m  faf. 
"This  is  the  life  eternal,  to  know — to  know  the  only 
true  God,  and  Jesus  Christ  whom  He  hath  sent." 
And  that  knowledge  cannot  possibly  be  got  at  sec- 
ond hand. 

"Nearness  to  God"  is  vital,  if  we  would  be  pure. 
Would  we  have,  would  we  retain,  cleanness — not  of 
hands  only,  but  of  heart — inwardly  and  to  the  depth  ? 
It  is  the  man  who  "hath  the  hope  in  Him  that  when 
He  shall  appear  we  shall  be  like  Him,  seeing  Him  as 
He  is,"  who  "purifieth  himself  even  as  He  is  pure."* 
And  to  see  Him  then  we  must  have  seen  Him  now, 
as  personal  faith  alone  sees  "Him  who  is  invisible." 
Intercourse  with  God  is  the  victorious  secret  of 
heart-purity — intercourse  direct,  individual,  alone. 
The  outward  and  inward  foes  to  purity  are  strong 
and  subtle :  woe  to  the  man  who  undertakes  them 
in  his  own  name !  But  there  is  a  power,  which  the 
weakest  Christian  can  seek,  and  find,  and  wield, 
which  is  adequate  for  their  absolute  defeat:  "they 
shall  fall  and  perish  at  Thy  presence." 

"Nearness  to  God"  is  vital,  if  we  would  be  un- 
*  1  John  iii.  2,  3. 


128        THE  INDIVIDUAL  AND  GOD. 


wearied  amidst  a  world  indifferent,  even  when  not 
positively  corrupted,  in  the  active  strife  for  virtue. 
They  tell  us  that  there  is  a  perceptible  decline  in 
England  of  strong  enthusiasm  for  great  moral 
causes.  Is  it  so?  Then  contribute  your  own  weight, 
at  least,  to  the  scale  for  virtue  in  her  need  against 
the  mighty.  And  if  you  would  do  so  in  the  right 
spirit,  unhasting,  unresting,  patient,  resolved,  un- 
embittered,  absolutely  convinced,  be  much  in  inter- 
course with  God.  They  who  would  indeed  move  the 
world  for  righteousness  need  to  have  "the  secret  of 
His  presence"  about  them  "before  the  sons  of  men." 
And  they  must  find  that  secret  first — alone  with 
Him. 

"Nearness  to  God"  is  vital  for  the  right  entrance 
into  all  the  energies  and  interests  of  a  true  life.  You 
must  live  for  your  work,  whatever  work  the  eternal 
Master  has  chosen  for  you.  You  must  live  in  it. 
You,  Christian  students,  must  live  in  your  mental 
labor,  and  not  play  around  its  fringes.  But  you 
cannot  live  on  it;  your  life-power  is  in  your  God, 
your  Saviour;  you  must  nourish  it  with  Him,  as- 
similating Him  ever  more  in  the  healthy  hunger  of 
the  soul.  "He  that  eateth  Me  shall  live  because  of 
Me."  Yes,  he  shall  live,  he  shall  move,  he  shall 
indeed  have  power. 

Sixty-two  years  ago,  short  of  just  three  weeks,*  in 
*  The  Sermon  was  preached  October  23,  1898. 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  AND  GOD. 


his  rooms  at  King's,  while  the  bell  of  this  Church 
was  pealing  for  the  sermon  he  was  to  have  delivered, 
sinking  down  at  last  after  fifty-four  years  of  strenu- 
ous and  vastly  fruitful  work  in  this  place  for  Christ, 
died  Charles  Simeon,  clarum  et  venerabile  nomen,  a 
glory  to  Eton,  to  Cambridge,  to  our  English  Chris- 
tendom. If  ever  man  labored,  it  was  he ;  touching, 
you  might  have  thought,  the  world  around  him  with 
ceaseless  activities  in  his  every  waking  hour,  so  great 
was  his  record  of  tangible  achievement.  But  no; 
day  by  day  his  earliest  waking  hours,  won  by  brave 
self-discipline  from  sleep,  were  spent,  all  through 
his  life  from  young  manhood  onwards,  in  solitary 
converse  with  God.  His  rooms  were  his  oratory, 
and  so  was  the  roof  above  them,  where  he  paced  the 
leads  alone  in  long  intercourse  with  his  Lord.  Thence 
flowed  out  the  life  spiritually  so  powerful.  His  last 
surviving  intimate,  the  honored  William  Carus, 
seven  years  ago,  in  the  bedchamber  at  Bournemouth 
where  shortly  afterwards  he  passed  radiant  with  love 
and  happiness  to  the  world  of  light,  spoke  once  more 
to  me  of  Simeon.  And  his  thought  was  not  of 
Simeon's  energies,  but  of  the  source  behind  them. 
"That  was  a  wonderful  life,"  he  said  to  me,  "the 
life  he  lived  up  there,  all  alone  with  God." 

In  our  day,  in  our  measure,  for  our  life,  our  strife, 
our  toil,  we  also  will  seek  and  we  shall  find.  "As 
for  me,  nearness  to  God  for  me  is  good." 


VIII. 


TWO  CAMBRIDGE  SAINTS :  NICHOLAS 
RIDLEY,  HENRY  MARTYN 

Preached  in  the  University  Church,  Cambridge,  October  16, 

1898. 

"Whose  faith  follow,  considering  the  end  of  their  conversa- 
tion."— Heb.  xiii.  7. 

This  sixteenth  day  of  October,  as  it  happens,  is  a 
date  to  be  remembered  in  the  Christian  annals  of 
Cambridge.  It  is  the  day  on  which  two  of  our 
academic  Mother's  noblest  sons,  first  one  and  then, 
after  a  long  interval  of  time,  the  other,  laid  down 
their  lives  and  slept  in  Christ. 

On  October  16,  1555,  at  Oxford,  on  a  morning 
of  torrent  rain  and  fitful  sunshine,  at  a  stake  set  in 
Balliol  ditch,  in  a  fire  lighted  with  difficulty  and 
delay,  and  which  did  its  fierce  work  only  by  degrees, 
died  Nicholas  Ridley,  Bishop  of  London,  late  Bishop 
of  Rochester,  formerly  Master  of  Pembroke  in  this 
University,  "crying  with  a  wonderful  great  voice: 
In  manus  tuas,  Domine,  commendo  spiritum  meum," 
till  the  fire  touched  the  bag  of  gunpowder,  and  the 
cry  was  stilled. 

130 


NICHOLAS  RIDLEY,  HENRY  MARTYN.  131 


On  October  16,  18 12,  a  young  English  clergyman, 
chaplain  of  the  East  India  Company,  broken  with 
consumption  and  burnt  with  fever,  alone  of  every 
European  friend,  trying  to  reach  Constantinople  for 
England  by  forced  marches  on  horseback,  expired 
in  the  town  of  Tocat,  near  the  southern  shores  of 
the  Black  Sea.  He  was  a  Bachelor  of  our  Divinity 
Faculty,  a  Fellow  of  St.  John's ;  he  had  been  placed 
Senior  Wrangler,  at  the  head  of  a  brilliant  list, 
eleven  years  before,  in  1801.  His  name  was  Henry 
Martyn. 

Thus  a  coincidence  of  the  calendar  brings  together 
two  lives  and  deaths,  two  names  and  characters, 
separated  by  great  lengths  of  period  and  circum- 
stance, but  on  the  other  hand  closely  akin  to  one 
another,  in  their  relation  to  our  beloved  Cambridge, 
in  richness  of  intellectual  endowment,  in  the  life  of 
Christian  faith  and  love,  yea,  the  life  hid  with  Christ 
in  God,  and  in  the  call,  each  man  after  the  conditions 
of  his  time,  greatly  to  labor  and  greatly  to  suffer  for 
their  Lord. 

It  has  occurred  to  me  that  a  brief  commemoration 
and  consideration  of  these  two  lives  and  deaths  may 
afford  not  unsuitable  matter  for  our  attention  on 
this  the  first  Sunday  of  full  term  in  a  new  Cambridge 
year.  Ridley  and  Martyn  seem  to  me  to  be,  each 
of  them,  a  man  singularly  noble  and  suggestive  as 


132         TWO  CAMBRIDGE  SAINTS: 


a  type,  a  lesson,  an  animation.  In  particular,  I 
seem  to  see  in  them  inspiring  examples  of  what  I 
may  call  the  University  character,  the  character 
receptive  of  and  developed  by  the  highest  influences 
of  an  English  University.  Widely  differing  in  some 
respects,  as  two  strong  individualities  of  quite  dif- 
ferent periods  would  be  likely  to  do,  they  had  some 
great  characteristics  in  common.  They  were  emi- 
nently men,  in  the  courage  and  in  the  gentleness 
which  belong  to  the  true  man.  Physically,  each 
was  remembered  by  his  friends  as  strong  and  agile ; 
mentally,  they  were  gifted  far  above  the  common, 
and  put  their  powers  to  indefatigable  and  lofty  use. 
In  habits  of  life  they  both  appear  to  have  shown 
that  wholesome  combination,  the  freedom  of  a  per- 
fect naturalness,  of  a  kindly  humor,  of  extended 
interests,  along  with  a  self-discipline  which,  rooted 
in  the  fear  of  God  and  nursed  by  an  unswerving 
rule  of  secret  devotion  before  Him,  touched  their 
whole  conduct  with  its  elastic  but  firm  sway,  pre- 
paring them  to  sacrifice  even  more  than  to  achieve. 
Let  it  be  added  that,  having  well  used  the  gifts  and 
training  of  Cambridge,  they  both  loved  her  to  the 
end  with  a  strong  and  beautiful  affection.  Martyn, 
in  his  letters  from  the  remote  East,  perpetually 
recurs  to  her.  Ridley,  within  a  fortnight  of  the 
fire,  writes  his  last  letters  of  farewell  to  the  scenes 


NICHOLAS  RIDLEY,  HENRY  MARTYN.  133 


and  persons  of  his  life — one  of  the  grandest  flights, 
in  my  poor  opinion,  of  all  our  older  English  prose, 
not  excepting  Milton's  own;  and  deep  and  tender 
are  the  adieux  he  addresses  there  to  his  University 
and  to  his  College. 

As  types  of  Englishmen,  of  Cambridge  students, 
of  believers  in  and  servants  of  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ,  types  differing  yet  deeply  cognate,  I  think 
that  Ridley  and  Martyn  may  well  engage  us  for  a 
little  while.  We  will  consider  something  of  their 
"conversation,"  their  life-course,  and  of  its  "end." 
I  think  we  shall  not  deny  that  it  is  well  with  those 
who  "follow,"  who  imitate,  "their  faith." 

Nicholas  Ridley  was  son  of  a  Northumbrian 
knight.  I  stood,  last  August,  in  what  remains  of  the 
somewhat  grim  fortified  house,  Willimoteswick,  or 
Willumswick,  as  the  peasants  call  it,  where  first  he 
saw  the  light,  about  1503,  on  the  hilly  sides  of  Tyne- 
dale.  Flodden  was  an  event  of  his  boyhood,  and  the 
associations  of  Border  warfare  lived  in  his  memory 
to  the  end.  In  his  Farewell  he  cheers  his  spirit  for 
the  last  fiery  conflict  for  what  with  all  his  soul  he 
held  for  truth,  by  recalling  how  often  he  had  seen  his 
kinsfolk  and  neighbors  stand  for  their  hearths  and 
homes,  to  the  death,  if  need  be,  against  the  raiders 
of  the  North. 


134         TWO  CAMBRIDGE  SAINTS: 


From  school  he  passed  to  Pembroke  here,  and  in 
1522  his  name  appears  in  our  ancient  registers  fourth 
among  the  Wranglers,  indicating  a  successful  study 
of  the  whole  curriculum  of  his  time.  He  was  chosen 
Fellow,  and  at  length  Master,  of  his  College,  and 
took  for  some  years  an  active  part  in  the  life  and 
business  of  the  University.  On  the  accession  of 
Edward  he  was  called  to  the  see  of  Rochester,  as 
a  man  eminent  for  learning  and  godliness,  and  an 
avowed  friend  of  the  Reformation.  From  Rochester, 
three  years  later,  he  passed  to  London.  Another 
short  three  years,  and  the  advent  of  Mary  and  the 
restoration  of  the  Papacy  consigned  him  to  prison 
in  the  Tower.  Thence  he  was  transferred  to  custody, 
and  to  the  most  unjust  of  trials,  at  Oxford.  Eighteen 
months  later,  when,  after  a  certain  pause  and  inter- 
mission, the  burnings  began  again,  he  was  called 
with  his  elder  colleague,  Latimer,  to  die.  At  supper 
overnight  he  bade  his  friends  to  his  marriage.  He 
slept  the  night  quietly  out,  and  then  the  two  heroic 
friends  passed,  if  I  may  borrow  the  language  of  John 
James  Blunt  and  of  Julius  Hare,  "in  their  fiery  char- 
iot to  heaven." 

It  would  of  course  be  altogether  out  of  place  and 
occasion  to  attempt  to  exhibit  Ridley's  life  and  work 
before  you  in  any  detail.  It  must  be  enough  to 
recall  a  few  outstanding  facts.   He  was  the  diligent 


NICHOLAS  RIDLEY,  HENRY  MARTYN.  135 


administrator  of  his  College,  and  also,  in  his  vaca- 
tions, the  laborious  and  studious  parish  priest  of 
Heme,  in  Kent.  As  Bishop  he  appears  to  have  won 
the  respect  even  of  theological  and  political  oppo- 
nents by  his  incessant  labor  as  preacher  and  chief 
pastor,  and  by  the  beautiful  and  cheerful  saintliness 
of  his  domestic  life.  It  was  a  life  single  to  the  last, 
but  eminently  kindly  and  social,  and  full  of  winning 
charities.  At  Fulham  he  showed  filial  honor  to  the 
aged  mother  of  his  deprived  predecessor,  Bonner, 
setting  her  always,  in  whatever  presence,  in  the  best 
place  at  his  table. 

Altogether  we  seem  to  see  in  Nicholas  Ridley  a 
high  example  of  the  English  gentleman  and  the  true 
son  of  the  English  Church,  as  she  moved  forward 
into  purer  light  at  the  Reformation.  He  was  the 
man  who,  in  his  Pembroke  days,  was  remembered 
for  his  love  of  archery,  and  of  fives,  and  of  chess, 
as  well  as  for  his  tranquil  piety  and  his  large  reading, 
as  reading  began  to  be  understood  in  the  period  of 
Erasmus.  He  was  the  delightful  converser  at  his 
episcopal  table,  the  Christian  father  of  his  servants, 
the  ardent  friend  of  his  friends  in  God,  the  practical 
and  far-seeing  advocate  of  the  destitute  poor.  He 
was  the  dispassionate  student  of  the  great  contro- 
versy of  his  time,  and  arrived,  amidst  stormy  sur- 
roundings, in  a  serene  conviction  and  without  heat 


136         TWO  CAMBRIDGE  SAINTS: 


or  hurry,  at  conclusions  about  the  Papacy  and  about 
the  sacred  Eucharist  which  made  an  epoch — I  pre- 
sume to  say,  a  great  and  most  salutary  epoch — in 
English  theology.  He  was  the  courageous  defender 
of  the  rights  and  property  of  Church  and  School 
against  the  greed  of  an  unscrupulous  Court,  the  un- 
worthy circle  around  the  high-souled  and  blameless 
Edward.  In  1548,  Clare  Hall,  now  Clare  College, 
would  have  been  swept  away  for  sordid  purposes 
but  for  the  resolute  stand  of  Ridley  against  the 
Protector,  Somerset.  In  things  divine  he  was  the 
reverent  lover  of  the  past  as  to  all  which  was  really 
primeval  in  it,  and  pure,  and  of  good  report;  the 
indignant  rebuker  of  the  pseudo-protestant  spirit 
which  could  make  jests  over  eucharistic  error.  Yet 
he  did  not  spare  the  associations  of  a  lifetime  when 
he  conceived  it  his  duty  to  advocate  change  in  the 
cause  of  Christ  and  of  His  truth.  No  man  that 
I  have  read  of  seems  to  me  more  finely  to  embody 
the  ideal  of  the  Anglican  Reform,  the  character 
kindred  to  the  spirit  of  the  book  of  Common  Prayer, 
with  all  its  piety  towards  the  past,  and  all  its  yet 
deeper  piety  towards  spiritual  truth  and  the  open 
Scriptures,  educating  the  soul  and  mind  in  a  worship 
stately  in  its  grave  simplicity,  and  irradiated  all  over 
and  all  through  with  the  light  of  a  reason  large  and 


NICHOLAS  RIDLEY,  HENRY  MARTYN.  137 


open,  and  with  the  glory  of  a  free  approach  to  God 
in  Christ,  for  the  whole  Church  equally  and  together, 
in  spirit  and  in  truth. 

Such,  faintly  outlined,  was  Nicholas  Ridley,  as  he 
was  known.  But  the  true  life  of  the  true  man  has 
its  pulse,  of  course,  far  behind  the  scenes.  And 
Ridley,  alike  in  his  prosperity  and  in  his  hours  of 
outward  ruin,  lived  the  hidden  life  with  God,  con- 
versing with  Him  over  His  sacred  Word.  In  his 
Farewell,  he  lifts  the  veil  from  those  secrets  for  a 
moment,  when  he  bids  adieu  to  his  well-loved 
Pembroke:  "In  thy  orchard  (the  walls,  butts  and 
trees,  if  they  could  speak,  would  bear  me  witness) 
I  learned  without  book  almost  all  Paul's  Epistles, 
yea,  and  I  ween  all  the  canonical  Epistles,  save  only 
the  Apocalypse.  Of  which  study,  though  in  time  a 
great  part  did  depart  from  me,  yet  the  sweet  smell 
thereof  I  trust  I  shall  carry  with  me  into  heaven." 

Ridley's  Walk  is  still  shown  in  the  grounds  of 
Pembroke.  And  the  memory  of  our  other  academic 
saint  of  to-day  links  itself  also  with  a  garden,  a 
grove  green  and  fair  in  all  its  bowery  colonnades, 
the  wilderness  of  St  John's.  Never  do  I  pass  the 
borders  of  that  pleasant  place  but  the  mind  seems 
almost  to  see,  pacing  its  paths,  rapt  in  thought  and 
prayer,  young  Henry  Martyn.  It  was  his  chosen 
resort  for  privacy,  during  the  four  years  of  his  resi- 


138         TWO  CAMBRIDGE  SAINTS: 


dence  as  a  Fellow  in  his  College.  On  the  eve  of 
his  departure  for  the  East  he  bade  it  farewell,  on 
Saturday,  April  6,  1805 :  "I  passed  most  of  the 
morning  in  the  Fellows'  garden.  It  was  the  last 
time  I  visited  this  favorite  retreat,  where  I  have 
often  enjoyed  the  presence  of  God." 

Henry  Martyn  was  born  at  Truro,  in  1781,  son 
of  a  father  who  had  been  a  working  superintendent 
in  the  mines  of  Gwenap,  and  had  raised  himself  to 
competence.  He  entered  St.  John's  College  in  1797. 
According  to  his  own  sorrowing  admission,  he  came 
up  careless  of  religion,  and  living  altogether  without 
prayer.  His  spirits  were  high  and  his  temper  vehe- 
ment, and  to  please  and  to  distinguish  himself  was 
his  main  purpose.  Certainly  he  was  well  equipped 
for  distinction.  He  arrived  totally  ignorant  of  the 
very  elements  of  mathematics,  yet  he  was  head  of 
his  Tripos  and  first  Smith's  Prizeman  within  three 
years  and  a  half;  and  this  although  his  friends,  as 
they  afterwards  recalled  what  he  had  been,  were 
used  to  say  that  he  was  much  more  deeply  interested 
in  philology  and  in  literature  than  in  number  and 
figure.  A  little  iater  he  took  the  prize  for  the  Latin 
Essay  over  competitors  of  classical  distinction. 

But  by  this  time  he  was  a  prayerless  man  no 
longer.   In  his  second  year,  his  father's  death  cast  a 


NICHOLAS  RIDLEY,  HENRY  MARTYN.  139 


shadow  over  earth's  brightness  for  him,  and  the 
teaching-  and  friendship  of  Charles  Simeon,  strong- 
est and  tenderest  of  Christian  guides  and  helpers, 
was  used  to  lead  him  to  the  feet  of  his  Redeemer. 
Faith,  as  it  ought  to  do,  only  quickened  and  elevated 
his  intellectual  life;  he  has  left  it  on  record  that 
nature  and  letters  both  seemed  to  present  to  him 
new  depths  and  beauties  when  he  came  to  know  the 
Lord.  But  with  that  knowledge  came  also,  of 
course,  the  desire  wholly  to  do  His  will;  and  His 
will,  indicated  in  many  ways,  led  him,  within  a  few 
years,  with  Simeon's  energetic  and  prescient  encour- 
agement, to  devote  himself  to  India — India,  then 
remote  from  England  as  no  inhabited  region  of  the 
earth  is  remote  today.  He  went  out  in  1805  as  a 
Company's  Chaplain,  at  a  time  when  missionaries, 
as  such,  to  the  indescribable  reproach  of  the  then 
policy  of  the  Directors,  were  interdicted  within  the 
British  pale.  But  a  chaplain  had  considerable  free- 
dom for  occasional  intercourse  with  the  natives,  and 
Martyn  used  the  opportunity.  He  gave  his  whole 
mental  power  to  Sanscrit,  Hindoostanee,  Arabic, 
and  Persian.  He  preached  whenever  and  wherever 
he  could  to  native  audiences;  he  did  wonders  of 
achievement  as  a  translator  within  his  seven  short 
years  of  Indian  life,  and  he  powerfully  impressed 
the  most  cultivated  and  skeptical  Europeans  by  his 


140         TWO  CAMBRIDGE  SAINTS: 

union  of  literary  faculty  and  acquirement  with 
abundant  cheerfulness,  with  attentive  and  faultless 
courtesy,  and  with  the  purest  and  most  courageous 
godliness  in  daily  life. 

On  furlough  in  Persia,  where  he  traveled  to  per- 
fect his  Persian,  he  engaged  often  in  discussion  with 
the  Mahometan  and  mystic  sages,  and  earned  now 
their  threats  and  revilings  as  he  confessed  the  God- 
head of  his  Lord,  and  now  their  reverence  as  for  the 
holiest  and  most  learned  of  the  Franks.  Sick  at 
last  with  the  advances  of  mortal  weakness,  and  with 
the  sorrows  of  a  pure  human  love  disappointed  ( for 
the  chosen  of  his  heart  was  never  free  to  join  him  in 
India),  he  set  out  on  leave  for  England,  and  died 
upon  the  vast  journey  overland.  At  Tocat  his  dust 
now  reposes ;  in  the  garden  of  the  American  Mission 
stands  (or  stood  a  while  ago;  we  trust  that  the  wave 
of  outrage  of  these  latter  days  has  spared  it)  an 
obelisk  over  Martyn's  grave,  recording  in  four  lan- 
guages who  he  was  and  why  he  was  buried  there. 

No  English  friend  was  with  him  at  or  near  the 
end;  but  that  Presence  which  never  fails  the  faith- 
ful was  not  only  about  him,  but  felt  and  known 
to  be  about  him.  true  to  the  promise  of  our  King 
to  those  that  love  Him  and  do  His  will :  "He  that 
hath  My  commandments  and  keepeth  them,  he  it 
is  that  loveth  Me;  and  he  that  loveth  Me  shall  be 


NICHOLAS  RIDLEY,  HENRY  MARTYN.  141 


loved  of  My  Father,  and  I  will  love  him,  and  will 
manifest  Myself  to  him."*  Martyn's  journal  was 
carried  on  by  his  Tartar  courier  to  Constantinople, 
and  so  reached  England.  Its  latest  entry,  written 
at  an  unnamed  place  on  the  Persian  border,  is  dated 
October  6,  1812,  ten  days  before  the  end:  "No 
horses  being  to  be  had,  I  had  an  unexpected  repose. 
I  sat  in  the  orchard"  (another  orchard  than  that  of 
Ridley's  Pembroke),  "and  thought  with  sweet  com- 
fort and  peace  of  my  God,  in  solitude  my  company, 
my  Friend  and  Comforter.  Oh,  when  shall  time  give 
place  to  eternity?  When  shall  appear  that  new 
heaven  and  new  earth  wherein  dwelleth  righteous- 
ness? There,  there  shall  in  no  wise  enter  anything 
that  defileth;  none  of  those  corruptions  which  add 
still  more  to  the  miseries  of  mortality  shall  be  seen 
or  heard  of  any  more." 

So  he  touched  the  brink  of  that  mysterious  Jordan 
which  awaits  our  feet  also,  and  so  he  passed  over, 
finding  without  a  doubt  that  great  word  true,  "If  a 
man  keep  My  saying,  he  shall  never  see  death. "f  He 
was  but  thirty-one  years  old,  and  he  was  never  per- 
mitted to  receive  one  genuine  convert  as  the  fruit 
of  his  personal  Indian  ministry ;  but  for  eighty-six 
years  now  his  memory,  his  example,  his  pure  flame 
♦John  xiv.  21.  t  John  viii.  51. 


142         TWO  CAMBRIDGE  SAINTS: 


of  "zeal  and  love,  recorded  eminent,"  has  borne 
the  fruit  of  a  host  of  consecrations  to  the  like  labor, 
in  the  name  of  the  same  redeeming  Lord. 

I  have  attempted  thus  to  place  before  you  some 
slight  memorials  of  these  two  saints  and  servants 
of  God,  men  of  our  race  and  land  and  Church, 
men  of  our  Mother  Cambridge,  each  reflecting 
indeed  a  peculiar  honor  on  his  illustrious  College 
here;  but  all  such  honors  are  our  common  property 
besides. 

It  is,  of  course,  with  serious  purpose  that  I  have 
spoken  thus  of  Ridley  and  of  Martyn.  True,  it  is 
a  personal  delight  to  contemplate  such  characters 
and  faces  with  a  regard  which  for  a  while  terminates 
in  them ;  "it  is  good  to  look  upon  a  man,"  above  all, 
upon  a  man  of  God.  But  it  can  never  possibly  be 
well  to  let  our  sight  of  the  saints  really  terminate 
in  them.  We  can  see  them  rightly  only  when  they 
are  asked  to  answer  our  gaze  with  their  messages, 
and,  above  all,  to  point  us  upward  to  look  upon 
their  King. 

As  we  prepare  to  close,  then,  what,  in  some  great 
particulars,  is  the  message  of  these  two  lives  to  us  ? 

It  comes  partly  through  their  differences.  Not 
to  speak  of  personal  characteristics,  Ridley  and 
Martyn  were  called  by  their  Disposer  to  walks  and 


NICHOLAS  RIDLEY,  HENRY  MARTYN.  143 


works  widely  differing.  To  the  one  was  allotted 
the  magnificent  but  formidable  period  of  the  Re- 
naissance and  the  Reformation ;  to  the  other,  a  time 
in  which,  splendid  as  many  of  its  features  were, 
English  culture  had  scarcely  yet  felt  the  full  modern 
impulse,  and  when  English  religion  was  only  strug- 
gling back  with  difficulty  and  by  degrees  into  spirit- 
ual power  after  a  long  abeyance.  To  the  one  was 
assigned  a  public  life  and  labor,  extended  over  many 
years,  a  formative  hand  at  a  great  crisis  of  the 
Church,  a  confession  before  unjust  judges,  and  a 
death  of  shame  and  agony.  The  other  was  called  to 
a  work  comparatively  silent  and  private  in  its  con- 
ditions, under  alien  skies,  an  experiment  often  rather 
than  an  achievement,  to  sickness,  solitude,  and  an 
early  grave. 

Such  were  some  of  their  differences.  They  speak 
to  us  the  old  message  that  "God  fulfills  Himself  in 
many  ways"  in  His  saints — in  divers  manners  as 
well  as  at  sundry  times;  and  they  remind  us  that 
for  every  life  here,  for  every  mind,  for  every  will, 
for  every  hand,  so  it  be  given  over  to  the  hand  of 
God,  there  lies  ready  the  chosen  and  adjusted  faith 
and  task,  no  two  quite  alike,  "to  every  man  his 
work." 

But  the  differences  all  run  up,  in  Ridley  and  in 
Martyn,  into  great  features  of  likeness,  of  identity. 


144 


TWO  CAMBRIDGE  SAINTS: 


Their  lives  were  both  of  a  piece,  for  one  thing,  in 
their  energetic  and  conscientious  use  of  the  gifts  of 
God,  as  well  as  of  His  grace,  that  gift  which  we 
must  rank  apart.  The  academic  stories  of  the  two 
are  indeed  akin.  The  Fourth  Wrangler  of  1 522  and 
the  Senior  Wrangler  of  1801  were  both  men  who 
knew  the  sacredness  of  the  gift  of  mind,  and  in  the 
scene  of  study  made  it  their  first  duty  to  be  students, 
reaping  from  this  a  harvest  of  power  for  their  work 
to  come.  Their  lives,  again,  were  of  a  piece  as  time 
called  them  on  to  action,  in  respect  of  the  recogni- 
tion of  the  special  work,  allotted  to  their  periods, 
the  purpose  and  power  to  "serve  their  own  genera- 
tion in  the  will  of  God."  Nobly  forgetful  of  ease 
and  self-protection,  and  never  dreaming  of  the  poor, 
the  pitiable,  question,  whether  their  convictions  were 
popular  and  in  the  fashion,  they  addressed  them- 
selves, the  one  to  his  part  in  the  great  crisis  of  the 
national  Church,  the  other  to  the  dawning  hope  of 
the  evangelization  of  the  world,  as  to  the  call  of  their 
Master  then  and  there  for  them. 

But  the  deepest  of  all  their  likenesses,  the  thing, 
rather,  in  which  they  were  one — I  beseech  my 
brethren,  and  you,  my  younger  brethren,  especially, 
to  recollect  and  weigh  it — was  their  personal  rela- 
tion to  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord.  In  this,  Ridley  and 
Martyn  meet  indeed  and,  as  it  were,  are  merged 


* 


NICHOLAS  RIDLEY,  HENRY  MARTYN.  145 


together.  Historically,  their  theology  of  His  Per- 
son, and  also  of  His  saving  Work,  was  the  same  and 
one.  In  spiritual  experience,  they  knew,  and  they 
lived  by,  the  same  certainties  about  Him.  The 
mighty  truths  recovered  publicly  for  the  Church  at 
the  Reformation,  and  called  into  fresh  and  wonder- 
ful effect  in  the  memorable  Revival  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  the  truth  of  Justification  by  Faith,  that  is, 
of  peace  with  God  in  a  trusted  Christ,  and  the  truth 
of  the  living  Work  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  free  and 
personal,  glorifying  Christ  in  the  heart — these 
truths,  could  we  have  put  the  question  to  them,  would 
have  been  affirmed  with  equal  joy  by  the  martyr  of 
Oxford  and  the  confessor  of  Tocat. 

They  were  what  they  were  because  of  Him. 
Christ  in  His  merit  for  them,  Christ  in  His  life  in 
them,  this  was  the  last  analysis  of  their  "conversa- 
tion" and  of  its  "end." 

To  them,  even  as  it  must  be  to  the  latest  of  all 
human  generations,  to  "whosoever  will  come  after 
Him,"  He  was  not  something  only,  nor  much  only, 
but  all — all  for  the  burthened  conscience,  all  for  the 
wandering  and  the  fainting  will,  and  for  the  mortal 
mystery  at  last.  With  Him,  as  with  their  living 
Law  and  Peace  and  Hope  and  Power,  they  lived 
conversing.  And  so  they  caught  His  likeness  on 
their  faces,  till  in  each  of  them  we  see  something  of 


146         TWO  CAMBRIDGE  SAINTS: 


Him.  (And,  oh,  what  dream  of  other  ambitions 
can  ever  soar  so  high  at  its  utmost  flight  as  the  hope 
that  through  the  disciple  may  be  somehow  seen  some 
scintilla  of  the  Master's  brightness?)  As  Isaac 
Taylor  says,  in  a  pregnant  essay  in  his  Saturday 
Evening:  "So  far  as  Christians  truly  exhibit  the 
characteristics  of  their  Lord,  in  spirit  and  conduct, 
a  vivid  emotion  is  enkindled  in  other  Christian 
bosoms,  as  if  the  bright  Original  of  all  perfection 
stood  dimly  revealed.  The  conclusion  comes  upon 
the  mind  that  this  family  resemblance  springs  from 
a  common  center,  and  that  there  exists,  as  its  arche- 
type, an  invisible  Personage,  of  whose  glory  all  are 
in  a  measure  partaking." 

So  it  was  then,  so  it  is  now;  for  "Jesus  Christ  is 
the  same,  yesterday,  and  today,  and  unto  the  ages 
too." 


IX 


THE  SIGHT  OF  SELF  AND  THE  SIGHT 
OF  CHRIST 

Preached  in  the  University  Church,  Oxford 

"When  I  saw  Him,  I  fell  at  His  feet  as  dead.  And  He  laid 
His  right  hand  upon  me,  saying  unto  me,  Fear  not;  I  am  the 
First  and  the  Last :  I  am  He  that  liveth,  and  was  dead ;  and, 
behold,  I  am  alive  for  evermore,  Amen ;  and  have  the  keys  of 
hell  and  of  death."— Rev.  i,  17,  18. 

I  read  these  words  with  a  very  simple  purpose. 
They  lie  surrounded  with  mystery  for  their  context, 
and  in  their  own  terms  they  all  "go  off  into  mys- 
tery." But  I  approach  them  for  no  elaborate  in- 
quiry; I  accept  them  as  they  stand.  Here,  in  the 
faith  of  the  Church  of  Christ,  verified  by  the 
heavenly  Spirit  to  the  believing  soul,  is  a  true  record 
of  a  true  experience,  when  on  that  far-off  Lord's 
Day,  upon  the  rock  of  Patmos,  John  of  Galilee,  ven- 
erable, saintly,  full  of  the  Holy  Ghost  and  of  the 
powers  of  the  world  to  come,  fell  down  as  if  dead  at 
the  feet  of  his  manifested  Master.  Then  and  there 
was  he  touched  by  that  Master's  hand,  while  there 
came  upon  his  soul,  not  from  within  him  but  from 

147 


148  THE  SIGHT  OF  SELF 


without,  his  Master's  utterance.  What  spoke  to  him 
was  no  mere  issue  of  the  action  of  his  mind.  It  was 
Christ's  heart  in  Christ's  words.  It  was  He,  putting 
Himself  in  contact  with  the  disciple ;  it  was  He,  tell- 
ing him  that  he  need  not  fear,  and  that  the  reason 
not  to  fear  lay  altogether  and  forever  in  Him  who 
touched  him. 

It  is  tempting  to  try  to  collect  in  the  mind  the 
astonishing  imagery  of  the  vision;  as  if  we  could 
figure  to  ourselves  the  seer  in  his  prostration,  and 
above  him  the  Human  Face  which  shone  like  the 
sun,  and  the  moving  lips  whose  words  were  like  the 
voices  of  the  sea.  But  such  attempts  at  a  misnamed 
realization  can  do  us  little  good.  It  is  better  to  fall 
back  at  once  upon  the  inmost  essence  of  the  scene, 
and  so  to  realize  it  indeed.  Behold  the  spiritual 
phenomenon.  Consider  this  prostration  of  the  mor- 
tal disciple — yes,  though  he  is  also  the  chosen  friend 
of  the  Incarnate  God.  See  him  collapsed  before  his 
Lord  thus  manifested  to  his  spirit,  till  he  rises  and 
revives  only  by  the  deed  and  word  of  that  Lord  Him- 
self. With  this  direct  and  simple  purpose  I  place 
this  Scripture  before  you,  asking  you  to  suffer  me 
in  a  few  remembrances  and  appeals  over  two  large 
truths  embodied  in  the  Epiphany,  the  Theophany, 
of  Patmos.  Standing  within  its  solemn  glory,  let 
us  first  consider  how  man  sees  himself  in  the  act  of 


AND  THE  SIGHT  OF  CHRIST. 


seeing  the  Son  of  God;  then,  how  he  is  told  not  to 
fear,  in  the  Name,  and  only  in  the  Name,  of  Him 
whom  he  has  seen. 

May  He,  merciful  and  gracious,  not  leave  us  alone 
with  the  subject  of  Himself.  Without  Him,  our 
essays  of  thought  upon  Him  are  sure  to  be  futile  and 
beside  the  mark.  But  let  Him  be  wiih  us  and  we 
shall  not  think  in  vain  of  what  He  is. 

i.  Here  first,  then,  we  have  before  us  man  seeing 
himself,  in  the  act  of  seeing  the  King,  the  Lord  God, 
the  Lamb  of  God,  the  Son  of  the  Father.  He  sees 
Him,  and  is  overwhelmed  in  seeing. 

This,  on  the  threshold,  is  a  profound  paradox. 
Thanks  be  to  God,  Christians  have  learned  to  com- 
bine habitually  with  the  thought  of  the  sight  of 
Christ  ideas  of  great  peace  and  joy.  "I  said,  Behold 
Me;"  ''Look  unto  Me,  and  be  ye  saved."  "He  that 
seeth  the  Son,"  he  that  gazeth  upon  the  Son — 6  dewpZv 
rbv  ri6v —  "and  believeth  on  Him,  hath  eternal  life." 
"Now  lettest  Thou  Thy  servant  depart  in  peace,  for 
mine  eyes  have  seen  Thy  salvation,  the  Lord's 
Christ."  And  that  association  of  thoughts  is  divinely 
just.  To  look  thither,  to  contemplate  the  Only  Be- 
gotten, to  behold  the  Lamb  of  God,  to  do  that  effort- 
less work,  to  learn  the  blissful  quietism  of  that  look 
of  faith,  is  life  indeed.    Who  that  has  had  his  tired 


150  THE  SIGHT  OF  SELF 


and  bewildered  eyes  at  length  lifted  to  that  open 
vision,  he  knows  not  how,  can  ever  cease  to  rest  and 
to  be  glad  in  the  light  of  it,  knowing  with  an  insight 
which  passes  beyond  analysis  that  in  his  manifested 
Lord  is  really  present  for  him,  now  and  always,  a 
repose,  a  strength,  a  light,  a  gladness  which  is  ulti- 
mate, and  satisfies?  But  then,  this  is  only  so  be- 
cause of  the  revelation  of  grace  seen  along  with  the 
revelation  of  glory.  It  is  because  of  the  mercifully 
revealed  relation  between  the  majesty  of  Christ  and 
the  salvation  of  the  beholder  of  it.  Remove  the 
thought  of  that  relation ;  place  together,  in  the  way 
not  of  contact  but  of  contrast,  the  seer  and  the  Ob- 
ject of  his  sight,  and  it  is  otherwise  then.  Then,  if 
the  sinner's  insight  into  Christ  is  at  all  spiritually 
true,  he  falls  at  His  feet  as  dead.  "In  His  light  we 
see  light";  but  we  see  darkness  too;  we  see  self,  we 
see  the  foulness  and  the  guilt  of  sin,  and  the  awful 
rightfulness  which  utters  over  it  the  sentence  of  a 
final  exile  into  the  outer  night. 

So  it  is  all  through  the  Scriptures.  Primal  man, 
fallen  out  of  concord  with  the  will  of  God,  hides 
himself  in  the  deep  bower  from  that  approaching 
Voice  of  awful  and  eternal  sweetness.*  Abraham 
stands  at  Mamre  talking  with  his  Divine  Friend ;  and 
on  a  sudden  he  knows  through  his  inmost  being 
*  Gen.  lii.  8. 


AND  THE  SIGHT  OF  CHRIST.  151 


that  he  is  dust  and  ashes.*  Young  Isaiah,  in  his 
temple-trance, f  sees  'the  King,  the  Lord  of  Hosts'; 
none  other  (if  St.  JohnJ  may  be  our  expositor  here) 
than  the  Christ  of  God;  and  he  cries  out  that  he  is 
undone.  Job  is  pronounced  perfect  by  God  Himself 
in  the  opening  scene ;  but  he  gets  at  the  end  an  in- 
sight into  the  Creatorship  of  the  Eternal,  which  in- 
stantly lifts  him  (it  is  even  so  that  the  fully  awak- 
ened spirit  reasons)  to  an  insight  into  His  holiness, 
and  then  he  clasps  his  hand  to  his  mouth,  and  ab- 
hors himself,  and  repents.5  Peter  in  the  Galilean 
fishing-boat  feels  Heaven  near  him  in  his  Master — 
and  he  implores  Him  to  go  away.  If  Saul  falls  help- 
less and  confounded  when,  in  one  tremendous  mo- 
ment, he  sees  the  glorified  Jesus  without  having  yet 
believed  on  Him.  And  here,  last  of  all,  is  John,  the 
intimate,  the  chosen  friend,  the  dear  disciple,  near- 
est of  the  near  in  that  sweet  intercourse  of  old ;  he 
too  sees  in  a  terrible  sunlight  what  Christ  is — in 
contrast  with  a  saint;  and  he  falls  at  His  feet  as 
dead. 

Here  is  indeed  conviction  of  sin.    It  is  not  only 

conviction  of  creaturehood,  of  frailty,  of  mortality; 

it  is  conviction  of  sin.    No  one  can  ponder  the 

parallel  scenes  (for  example,  the  scene  where  Isaiah 

*  Gen.  xviii.  27.         f  Isairh  vi.  5.         t  John  xii.  41. 
§  Job  i.  8,  xlii.  5,  6.  ||  Luke  v.  8. 


152  THE  SIGHT  OF  SELF 


sees  God,  and  cries  aloud  that  he  is  a  lost  man),  and 
can  doubt  that  John  also,  in  this  moment  of  vision, 
felt  in  the  very  basis  of  his  being  that  awful  differ- 
ence between  fallen  man  and  God  which  is  sin ;  that 
icrT{pT)fiaf —  that  "falling  short  of  His  glory,"*  which 
man  may  totally  ignore  in  his  easy  hour,  or  at  the 
most  may  attenuate  and  extenuate,  but  which  in  the 
hour  of  spiritual  vision  he  sees  as  a  gulf  immeasur- 
able, impassable,  except  by  the  mercy  of  the  Holy 
One. 

To  see  God,  aye  to  see  God  in  Christ,  in  a  light 
which  shows  His  holiness,  but  which  is  not  yet 
transmitted  through  the  revelation  of  redeeming 
love,  is  an  awful  thing.  "At  this  also  the  heart 
trembleth,  and  is  moved  out  of  its  place."  "No  man 
shall  see  My  face  and  live." 

Yet,  my  brethren,  suffer  me  humbly  to  affirm 
that,  awful  as  that  sight  is,  it  is  divinely  salutary. 
Deep  in  the  heart  of  all  genuine  human  holiness  lies 
conviction  of  sin,  the  spiritual  sense  of  sin,  the  hav- 
ing been  brought  in  truth  and  fact  to  something  of 
Job's  abhorrence  and  John's  prostration.  I  do  not 
mean  a  morbid  and  restless  introspection.  What  I 
mean  is  not  so  much  inlook  as  outlook.  It  is  not  to 
dwell  with  a  perilous  minuteness  upon  the  pathology 
of  particular  sins;  this  may  be  only  the  distorted 
*  Rom.  iii.  23. 


AND  THE  SIGHT  OF  CHRIST.  153 


counterfeit  of  a  true  self-examination.  I  mean 
something  at  once  deeper  and  higher :  a  waking  up 
of  conscience  to  the  awfulness  of  sin  as  sin;  to  the 
spiritual  fact  that  sin  is  the  thing  eternally  abomi- 
nable to  the  living  God ;  to  the  sight  of  it  in  the  light 
of  His  pure  law,  till  sin,  in  the  stern  tautology  of  the 
Apostle,*  becomes  to  us  "exceedingly  sinful,"  be- 
cause it  is  discord  with  the  Will  of  God. 

Such  conviction  has  never  been  common.  Is 
it  too  much  to  say  that  in  our  own  time  it  is 
even  more  than  usually  scarce,  and  strange,  and 
out  of  the  religious  fashion  ?  Yet  it  affects  the  very 
life  of  the  soul,  and  so  of  the  Church.  Has  any 
great  misbelief  ever  arisen  in  Christendom,  and 
there  has  not  lain  at  its  roots  an  enfeebled  sense  of 
sin?  It  has  been  said,  and  I  for  one  hold  it  for 
truth,  that  the  proof  and  certainty  of  the  Faith  is 
fully  seen  only  through  the  awakened  conscience. 
Then  let  us  ask,  and  seek,  and  knock  for  conviction 
of  sin.  For  the  sake  of  the  depth  and  firmness  of 
our  faith  in  Christ,  and  of  our  peace  in  submission 
to  His  will,  and  of  our  serviceableness  for  His  work, 
let  us  dare  to  welcome  the  conviction,  deep  and 
sacred,  of  the  sinfulness  of  sin. 

For  this  end,  if  only  for  this,  let  us  set  ourselves 
anew  to  consider  "the  Inhabitant  of  Eternity,  whose 
*  Rom.  vii.  13. 


154  THE  SIGHT  OF  SELF 


name  is  Holy."*  Let  us  often  visit  the  ground  (not 
too  much  frequented  now)  where  man  puts  his  shoes 
off  his  feet  before  God.  Let  us  receive  into  our 
religion  the  spirit  of  holy  fear,  that  untormenting 
but  worshiping  fear  which  apprehends  the  purity 
of  the  King  of  Saints,  which  wonders  at  His  mercy 
as  well  as  takes  it;  which  exclaims  with  Micah.t 
"Who  is  a  God  like  unto  Thee,  that  pardoneth 
iniquity?"  while  yet  we  see,  with  a  faith  only  the 
clearer  for  that  holy  wonder,  that  He  stands  engaged 
(so  that  same  Scripture  tells  us)  "to  subdue  our 
iniquities  and  to  cast  all  our  sins  into  the  sea." 

Such  worshiping  insights  do  not  come  to 
spiritual  indolence.  They  want  wakeful  care,  and 
guarded  hours,  that  men  may  be  alone  before  their 
Lord.  They  want  a  humble  submission  to  the 
heavenly  Word,  with  a  willingness  that  light  should 
fall  through  it  direct  upon  our  darkness.  But 
we  shall  be  well  recompensed  for  the  watching  and 
the  submission.  The  sight  of  the  Holy  One  is 
the  most  abasing  of  all  things,  but  it  is  the  secret  of 
all  joy.  It  is  well  to  reach  that  joy  by  learning  first 
what  it  is  to  have  nothing  to  say  for  ourselves — that 
vital  factor  in  true  repentance ;  and  we  learn  this  in 
the  sight  of  Christ's  glory.  Let  us  covet  such  sights 
of  Him  as  shall  let  us  fall  at  His  feet  with  nothing 
*Isa.  lvii.  15.  t  Mic.  vii.  18,  19. 


AND  THE  SIGHT  OF  CHRIST.  155 


at  all  to  say.  It  is  good  to  be  there,  and  to  be  so. 
To  be  so  there  is  to  be  beneath  the  touch  of  His 
hand,  within  the  sound  of  His  voice,  as  He  says  to 
us,  what  only  He  has  the  right  to  say,  "Fear  not." 

ii.  With  that  word  we  are  brought  to  the  second 
limb  of  the  text.  We  come  to  find  the  man,  thus 
broken  down  by  the  sight  of  the  Holy  One,  now 
raised  and  reassured  and  greatly  blest  in  the 
name  of  Him  whom  he  has  seen.  "He  woundeth, 
and  His  hands  make  whole." 

Here,  again,  in  these  last  pages  of  the  Bible,  we 
have  a  spiritual  phenomenon  traceable  through  the 
whole  Volume.  Always,  where  man  finds  himself 
confounded  before  God,  it  is  from  God  Himself  and 
from  no  alien  region  that  the  wonderful  reassurance 
comes.  When  Isaiah  says,  "I  am  undone,"  the 
Seraph  from  above  the  throne  brings  him  the  fiery 
sacrament*  of  pardon  and  of  power.  Job  abhors  him- 
self because  his  eye  sees  the  Lord,  and  the  Lord  per- 
sonally accepts  him,  with  abundant  welcomes.  Peter 
shrinks  in  the  boat  away  from  his  Master,  and  his 
Master  says,  "Be  not  afraid."  And  here  at  Patmos 
it  is  the  same:  "He  laid  His  right  hand  upon 
me,  saying  unto  me,  Do  not  fear;  I  am  the  First 
and  the  Last,  and  the  Living  One;  and  I  became 
dead;  and  behold  living  am  I  to  the  endless 
*  Isa.  vi.  6. 


156  THE  SIGHT  OF  SELF 


ages,  Amen;  and  I  have  the  keys  of  Hades  and  of 
death."  This  is  revival  and  reassurance  to  purpose; 
a  strong  consolation,  for  its  material  and  texture  is 
altogether  Jesus  Christ.  Not  a  word  is  said  of  any 
reason  not  to  fear  inherent  in  the  disciple;  not  a 
syllable  comes,  in  that  transcendent  moment,  about 
the  endeared  and  wonderful  past  of  Galilee  and  of 
Judea,  those  incidents  of  the  most  sacred  of  all 
friendships,  in  the  cottage,  in  the  field,  on  the  shore, 
on  the  waters,  on  the  hills.  For  the  season,  it  is 
as  if  earth  were  not,  and  John  were  isolated  and 
solitary  in  eternity,  simply  a  sinner,  cast  down 
before  the  glory  of  the  Son  of  God.  And  the  reason 
for  the  "Do  not  fear"  does  not  attach  itself  to  John 
at  all.  It  is  not,  "It  is  thou."  It  is  altogether,  "It 
is  I." 

"It  sets  Him  well  to  commend  Himself" ;  so  said 
an  aged  disciple,  in  a  northern  cottage,  about  her 
Lord  and  Saviour.  "It  sets  Him,  it  becomes  Him 
well  to  commend  Himself."  Certainly  it  is  char- 
acteristic of  His  thought  and  utterance  to  do  so. 
Meek  and  lowly  of  heart,  He  is  yet  true  to  Himself, 
and,  being  what  He  is,  He  must  say  the  thing  that 
is.  As  in  the  days  of  His  flesh,  so  here  in  these  of 
His  glory,  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  is  His  own  gospel. 
He  puts  Himself  into  contact  with  the  man  at  His 
feet,  laying  upon  him  the  hand  which  by  its  touch 


AND  THE  SIGHT  OF  CHRIST.  15? 


is  to  signify  and  seal  at  once  His  claim,  His  blessing, 
and  that  immediate  union  which  His  grace  sets  up 
between  Himself  and  His  redeemed.  And  then  He 
tells  him  not  to  fear.  And  then,  in  order  to  this,  He 
recites  the  roll  of  His  own  majesty  and  mercy.  "I  am 
the  First  and  the  Last,  and  the  Living  One" —  6  zzv. 
He  avows  Himself  originally  and  indefectibly 
Eternal ;  He  is,  He  lives,  from  the  Alpha  that  never 
began  to  the  Omega  that  cannot  end.  He  is  no  un- 
knowable Infinity.  But  He  is  Infinite,  and  to  be  so 
known.  In  His  timeless  and  necessary  Oneness  with 
the  Father,  it  is  His  not  to  become  but  to  be,  with 
a  Being  full  of  the  Fount  of  life.  "And  I 
became  dead" — ko.i  tyevbwv  VeKp6$  a  mysterious  para- 
dox, in  which  a  most  wonderful  event  is  inserted, 
incorporated,  into  that  eternity  of  being.  In  this 
short  phrase  He  intimates  the  whole  mystery  of  the 
Incarnation ;  but  He  presents  just  that  aspect  of  it — 
short  phrase  He  intimates  the  whole  mystery  of  the 
Incarnation;  but  He  presents  just  that  aspect  of  it — 
mark  it  well — which  sinful  man,  prone  at  His  feet, 
most  needs.  He  does  not  articulate  the  thought  now 
of  His  blessed  Birth,  nor  of  His  life,  His  speech,  His 
labor,  His  example;  there  is  nothing  said  here  of 
Bethlehem,  or  of  the  years  of  Nazareth,  or  of  the 
fair  borders  of  the  Lake  with  the  furrowed  fields, 
and  the  floating  fishing-craft,  and  the  listening  multi- 


158  THE  SIGHT  OF  SELF 


tudes  upon  the  flowery  slopes.  It  is  all  the  Cross ;  it 
is  only  and  altogether  the  precious  Death  and  Burial. 
"I  became  dead."  We  read  that  sentence  in  the 
light  of  the  long  Apocalypse,  and  what  do  we  see 
within  it?  The  shame  and  glory  of  the  Crucifixion, 
the  atoning  and  redeeming  Blood,  the  sacrifice  of 
the  Lamb,  the  Lamb  not  of  innocence  only  but  of 
the  altar — "as  it  had  been  slain." 

Yes,  the  Lord's  Death,  in  its  peculiar,  its  unique 
significance,  appears  always  in  these  last  pages  of 
Scripture  as  the  central,  concentrating  Fact,  given 
for  the  wonder  and  worship  of  the  heavenly  elders 
and  the  innumerable  redeemed  in  the  upper  glory. 
"Thou  wast  slain,  and  hast  made  purchase  by  Thy 
blood  out  of  every  kindred" ;  "Worthy  is  the  Lamb 
that  hath  been  slain."  And  here  first  with  His  own 
hand  He  strikes  the  theme  of  the  mighty  fugue — 
"I  became  dead,"  naming  explicitly  His  Death 
alone  out  of  all  the  history  of  His  Humanity.  Only, 
and  of  course,  He  gives  it  not  as  isolated ;  He  glori- 
fies it  at  once  with  His  Resurrection.  Without  that, 
the  Death  would  be  to  us  as  nothing.  Without  the 
Resurrection  the  Cross  would  speak  to  us  no  peace. 
In  the  field  of  history,  without  the  Resurrection,  the 
Cross  would  long  since  have  faded  into  obscure  and 
conflicting  shadows ;  it  would  seem  now  at  best  one 
more  pathetic  ruin  of  illusory  beliefs,  soon  dropped 


AND  THE  SIGHT  OF  CHRIST.  159 


out  of  the  speech  and  at  last  out  of  the  heart  of 
the  weak  votaries  of  a  defeated  and  mistaken  leader. 
But  "Behold,  living  am  I,  for  the  endless  ages,  and 
I  have  the  keys  of  Hades  and  of  death."  So  the 
Prince  of  the  Cross  stands  over  His  prostrate 
servant,  to  touch  him,  and  to  tell  him  not  to  fear. 
It  is  not  the  slain  One  merely,  but  the  slain  One 
risen,  Master  of  Life,  Abolisher  of  Death,  He  who 
has  passed  victorious  through  the  deep  Unseen  and 
carried  out  its  keys  with  Him,  to  hold  for  ever.  The 
Risen  Christ !  Hear  His  Voice,  feel  His  hand !  It 
is  "Christ  which  is  our  Life,"  for  all  this  moment's 
necessities  of  the  soul,  the  man.  And  it  is  Christ  the 
imperial  Ruler  of  the  world  of  spirits,  that  world  so 
awful  to  human  apprehension  out  of  Him,  but  in 
Him — for  the  man  in  Him — safe,  hallowed,  happy. 
The  hand  that  rests  so  gently  on  the  contrite  servant 
is  the  hand  which  grasps  the  keys  of  death.  All 
things  there,  as  well  as  here,  belong  to  those  who 
belong  to  Him.  Are  you  Christ's  ?  Then  "all  things 
are  yours" ;  not  only  "Paul,  and  Apollos,  and  Ce- 
phas," but  also  "life,"  and  also,  quite  as  truly, 
"death."* 

So  in  the  great  vision  the  Lord  glorifies  Himself. 
"It  sets  Him  well."  He  has  to  transfigure  the  trance 
of  fear  into  the  rest  of  faith,  and  He  goes  the  nearest 
*  1  Cor.  iii.  22,  23. 


i6o  THE  SIGHT  OF  SELF 


way  to  do  it.  "I  am  He";  "It  is  I";  "Fear  not." 
John  is  lifted,  in  a  single  action,  out  of  himself,  to 
find  instant  and  absolute  peace  in  Christ — Christ 
eternal,  sacrificed,  risen,  Lord  of  both  worlds,  and 
in  living  contact  with  His  servant. 

What  was  so  then  is  so  to-day.  In  all  other 
things  "the  same,  yesterday,  and  today,  and  for 
ever,"  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  is  in  nothing  more 
magnificently  the  same  than  in  this — that  He, 
for  the  forgiveness,  the  acceptance,  the  peace, 
the  purification,  the  empowering  of  the  sinful  soul 
of  man,  is,  not  something,  not  many  things,  not 
the  great  things,  but  all.  John's  glorious  brother 
Paul,  whose  conversion  still  sheds  on  the  Church 
its  great  ray  of  witness  to  the  Lord's  eternal 
power  to  subdue,  to  justify,  to  glorify — what  says 
Paul*  of  that  all-sufficiency?  "Of  God  are  ye, 
in  Christ  Jesus,  who  of  God  is  made  unto  us 
wisdom,  even  righteousness,  and  sanctification,  and 
redemption."  All  is  there.  The  vast  range  of  our 
need  is  met  by  the  circle,  the  faultless  sphere,  of 
His  supply.  Righteousness,  to  justify  the  ungodly; 
Sanctification,  to  separate  us  from  sin  to  the  living 
fulness  of  a  life  in  God;  Redemption,  body  and 
*  I  Cor.  i.  30. 


AND  THE  SIGHT  OF  CHRIST.  161 


soul,  into  the  final  glory;  such  is  Christ.  He  does 
not  only  give  this.   He  is  this.   Christ  is  all. 

Great  and  multifold  is  "the  truth  as  it  is  in  Him." 
The  central  facts  of  grace  themselves,  to  think  of 
them  only,  have  aspects  innumerable.  But  they  all 
stand  in  relation  to  the  sublime  simplicity  of  the 
inmost  heart  of  the  Christian  Gospel;  out  of  that 
relation  they  cease  to  be.  That  Heart  of  the  system 
is  our  personal  Lord  Jesus  Christ;  Christ  all  things 
for  the  Christian,  Christ  all  things  in  him. 

What  gives  to  faith,  man's  faith,  its  peculiar  and 
supreme  position  in  the  scheme  of  grace,  from  our 
side?  Why  does  St.  Paul,  but  quite  equally  St. 
John,  and,  above  all,  their  Master,  so  emphasize 
and  accentuate  the  call  for  faith  ?  It  is  not  because 
of  the  merit,  because  of  the  virtuousness,  because 
of  the  beauty,  of  faith.  Faith's  essence  is  to  look 
out  of  and  ignore  itself,  to  forget  itself,  to  be  for- 
gotten, to  be  in  a  sense  as  if  it  were  not.  Virtus 
fidei  est  virtus  objccti.  Faith's  power  lies  in  what 
it  touches,  in  the  boundless  adequacy  and  excel- 
lency of  its  divine  Correlative,  its  glorious  Object. 
It  lies  in  the  Virtue  of  Him  to  whom  we  bring 
nothing  but  our  unutterable  need,  that  we  may  take 
from  Him  His  all.  It  lies  in  the  fact  that  it  is  a 
void  made  for  Jesus  Christ ;  it  is  a  hand  held  empty 
for  that  golden  gift,  Himself. 


1 62  THE  SIGHT  OF  SELF 


"God  doth  justify  the  believing  man,"  writes 
Richard  Hooker,  a  name  bright  and  venerable  in 
Oxford  if  anywhere,  "not  for  the  worthiness  of  his 
faith,  but  for  the  worthiness  of  Him  which  is  be- 
lieved."* 

Would  we  then  believe  indeed  unto  the  life 
eternal?  Would  we,  in  these  days  of  uncertainties 
and  unrest,  gravitate  to  our  center,  and  be  at  peace? 
Then  let  us  not  too  much  scrutinize  and  analyze  our 
believing;  let  us  rather  acquaint  ourselves  with  Jesus 
Christ.  Christ,  seen  in  His  fulness,  is  the  all-power- 
ful magnet  of  faith.  Get  but  a  real  view  of  Him,  even 
through  the  scarcely  rifted  clouds,  and  we  shall  not 
question  whether  we  can  do  so  great  a  thing  as  to 
believe;  we  shall  of  course  believe  (may  I  dare  to 
put  it  so?)  in  so  great  and  so  immeasurably  good 
an  Object.  The  traveler  over  the  ocean,  asked  to 
embark  upon  a  raft,  t  7ri  <rx^5ia%  KivBweveiv,  may  reason- 
ably falter.  Invited  to  step  upon  the  giant  struc- 
ture of  the  steamship,  to  enter  some  Lucania  or 
Campania,  he  trusts  wholly,  so  far  as  human 
warrants  of  safety  can  possibly  go;  but  he  forgets 
his  reliance,  in  the  vast  reason  for  it,  and 
he  addresses  himself  to  the  business  of  his  voyage. 

But  let  our  look  upon  that  Object  be  the  look  of 

*  Discourse  of  Justification,  ch.  33. 


AND  THE  SIGHT  OF  CHRIST.  163 


those  who  rely  upon  it,  wholly  indeed,  but  not 
lightly.  Let  it  be  the  look  of  the  contrite,  who 
have  fallen  at  His  feet,  and  there  felt  His  hand, 
and  there  heard  His  voice,  deep  as  many  waters, 
sweet  as  the  love  of  God :  "Fear  not ;  for  it  is  I, 
Fear  not,  because  of  Me.  I  am  the  First  and  the 
Last;  I  live;  I  died;  I  am  alive  for  ever;  I  hold 
the  keys." 


X 

"LOVEST  THOU  ME?" 

Preached  in  the  Chapel  Royal,  St.  James's  Palace 

"Jesus  saith  to  Simon  Peter,  Lovest  thou  Me?" — John  xxi. 
I5-I7- 

Who  that  takes  any  delight  in  the  Bible  at  all 
does  not  take  delight  in  the  twenty-first  chapter  of 
St.  John?  Who  has  not  felt  the  benignant  spell  of 
that  narrative,  in  its  indescribable  simplicity  and 
depth,  its  gracious  beauty  and  its  soul-penetrating 
power?  Willingly  we  follow  the  last  Apostle  as  he 
recounts  to  us,  in  his  uttermost  age,  with  the  photo- 
graphic precision  of  an  old  man's  recollection  of 
his  prime,  that  wonderful  memory.  He  leads  us  as 
if  into  the  very  landscape  of  the  Syrian  lake.  We 
embark  with  him  in  the  boat,  as  if  we  heard  the 
rattle  of  the  oars,  and  the  lap  of  the  ripples  on  the 
sides.  We  "ply  the  watery  task"  with  him  and  his 
comrades,  as  if  we  saw  the  vernal  stars  reflected 
under  our  eyes  in  the  dusky  mirror  of  the  deep. 
Their  weariness  and  disappointment,  as  the  night 
wanes  and  they  have  taken  nothing,  are  as  if  our 
own.  And  then  comes  up  the  morning  over  the 
dark  hills  of  Moab,  and  there  stands  a  Figure  on 

164 


LOVEST  THOU  ME?"  165 


the  solitary  beach,  and  there  are  callings  to  and  fro 
between  beach  and  boat;  and  the  nets  are  full  and 
heavy  on  a  sudden,  and  the  disciple  plunges  into 
the  water,  to  swim  and  wade  to  his  Master's  feet. 
The  whole  group  soon  gathers  round  the  fire  of 
coals;  the  fast  is  broken;  and  then  there  is  a 
colloquy  about  love  and  labor  and  martyrdom  and 
following.   We  have  seen  it,  heard  it,  shared  it  all. 

It  was  my  happiness  a  few  years  ago  to  set  eyes 
upon  the  Lake  of  Galilee,  gazing  with  strange  emo- 
tions upon  the  waters  and  the  mountain-shores  from 
the  garden  of  the  Scottish  Mission  Hospital  (scene 
of  a  noble  work  for  God)  at  Tiberias,  and  afterwards 
from  a  boat,  built  probably  on  lines  unaltered  for 
two  thousand  years,  and  worked  by  fishermen,  clad 
probably  in  the  very  fashion  of  the  Apostles. 
Wonderful  was  the  charm  of  the  thought  that  this 
was  indeed  the  scene  of  the  Gospels;  the  eyes  of 
the  Son  of  Man  knew  just  those  outlines  of  cliff, 
and  field,  and  shore,  and  that  snowy  dome  of 
Hermon  looking  on  from  the  northern  horizon. 
His  feet  trod  this  shell-wrought  strand,  aye,  and  the 
waves  too  into  which  those  smooth  waters  can  be 
tossed  so  soon.  Somewhere  yonder,  on  the  further 
side  (for  surely  it  was  on  that  more  solitary  margin), 
this  last  scene  of  St.  John's  narrative  was  enacted ; 
there  was  kindled  the  ruddy  fire,  there  the  water 


"LOVEST  THOU  ME? 


flashed  into  silver  as  Simon  Peter  wrestled  his  way 
through.  Along  that  shore,  whose  line  lies  so  dis- 
tinct between  lake  and  hills,  he  followed  the  steps 
of  Jesus,  and  turned  to  see  John  following  too. 

It  was  a  moving  thing  to  look  thus  with  waking 
eyes  on  the  region  as  it  is.  Yet,  such  is  the  power, 
the  artless  magic,  of  the  narrative  of  the  Apostle, 
that  I  know  not  whether  the  actual  gain  to  realization 
was  very  great.  The  Gospel  had  created  so  visible 
a  landscape  that  the  eyes  had  less  to  add  to  the 
picture  than  I  had  hoped. 

Yes,  we  may  all  in  thought  sit  together  by  that 
fair  water,  abundantly  assured  that  St.  John's  picture 
is  as  truthful  as  it  is  living,  alike  in  scenery  and  in 
action.  We  may  draw  nearer  to  the  spot  in  thought 
than  I  could  draw  by  sight  on  that  bright  afternoon 
of  my  visit;  for  our  mental  steps  may  tread,  as  my 
feet  could  not  do,  that  further  strand,  and  we  may 
pause  within  sight  and  hearing  of  the  very  dialogue. 
Look  then,  and  listen.  Jesus,  in  our  hearing,  is 
asking  Simon,  the  son  of  Jonas,  "Lovcst  thou  Me?" 

That  we  may  better  apprehend  the  depth  and 
wonder  of  that  question,  and  its  significance  for 
ourselves,  let  us  stand  by  a  little  while  and  contem- 
plate the  Inquirer  and  the  Answerer,  and  their 
relation  to  each  other.  It  is  Jesus  Christ  asking;  it 
is  Simon,  son  of  Jonas,  who  is  to  reply. 


LOVEST  THOU  ME?"  167 


Bcce  Homo! — "Behold  this  Man,"  who  requests 
the  assurance  of  the  other's  personal  affection !  As 
to  guise  and  garb  (we  may  certainly  take  that  for 
granted).  He  sits  there,  as  much  as  ever,  "in 
fashion  as  a  man."  Yes,  the  group  gathered  round 
the  glowing  embers  by  the  lake-side  is  eight — seven 
disciples,  bodily  present,  real  men;  one  Master, 
bodily  present,  real  man.  He  wears  the  dress  of 
His  country;  He  speaks  with  its  accent;  the 
morning  sun  throws  His  shadow  upon  the  grass 
and  the  stones.  Yes;  but  also,  He  is  the  Son  of 
God,  the  Bearer  of  the  sin  of  the  world,  the 
Savior  of  the  world,  the  Conqueror — the  recent 
Conqueror — of  the  grave.  He  has  died  the  most 
mysterious  of  deaths,  because  man  has  sinned,  and 
in  order  that  man  may  be  redeemed  and  saved. 
He  now  is  alive  for  evermore,  in  the  power  of  an 
endless  and  indissoluble  life.  Yet  a  little  while  and 
He  will  quit  the  visible.  He  will  ascend,  to  enter 
the  Unseen  and  to  take  His  place  on  nothing  less 
than  the  universal  Throne.  He  will  have  a  great 
place — "at  the  right  hand  of  the  Majesty  on  high, 
angels  and  authorities  and  powers  being  made  sub- 
ject unto  Him." 

Nor  is  He  unconscious  of  His  ineffable  dignities. 
All  through  this  scene  by  the  lake  St.  John  sets  the 
Lord  before  us  as  speaking  and  acting  with  an 


1 68  "LOVEST  THOU  ME?" 

autocratic  majesty  only  the  more  impressive  because 
of  its  absolute  calm  and  ease.  He  claims  to  be  the 
center  and  repose  of  the  whole  devotion  of  His 
disciples.  He  asserts,  if  the  word  assert  can  be  used 
without  obscuring  His  omnipotent  quiet,  the  most 
absolute  possible  lordship  over  them,  irresponsible 
and  ultimate :  "If  I  will  that  he  tarry  till  I  come, 
what  is  that  to  thee?"  They,  these  Apostles,  are 
His  mere  property.  And  the  souls  for  which  they 
are  to  labor  equally  belong  to  Him — "My  lambs," 
"My  sheep." 

Such  is  the  one  Party  in  the  scene — our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ,  God  and  Man.  in  the  serenity  and 
loftiness  of  His  resurrection  life ;  Master  and  Com- 
mander, as  He  has  just  shown  Himself  to  be,  alike 
of  nature  and  of  man;  "Head  over  all  things"  to 
creation,  to  the  Church,  and  to  the  soul.  From 
Him  those  simplest  imaginable  human  syllables 
come  upon  the  morning  air,  Do  yon  love  me? 

Consider  the  other  party  in  his  turn.  To  us, 
indeed,  the  man  and  the  name  are  great  and 
venerable,  as  we  think  what  St.  Peter  was  in  the 
sum  of  his  life,  and  what  his  work  means  for  the 
Church  forever,  and  as  we  remember  his  present 
glorified  rest  and  joy  above.  But  it  is  no  irreverence 
to  recall  the  other  side,  as  it  showed  itself  there  and 
then.    Who  is  this  man  who  receives  that  question. 


LOVEST  THOU  ME?"  169 


and  prepares  to  answer?  He  is  just  a  provincial,  a 
peasant,  born  and  bred  in  a  corner,  trained  to 
common  toil;  a  young  man,  we  may  assume,  for 
surely  the  Apostles  all  belonged  to  their  Master's 
generation — a  young  man,  Galilean  to  the  core,  un- 
cultured, plebeian,  and,  in  point  of  character,  "not 
so  much  strong  as  strongly  marked";*  impulsive,  by 
no  means  always  wise,  capable  indeed  of  tremendous 
miscalculations  and  mistakes.  He  is  just  the  son  of 
Jonas,  the  homely  "pilot  of  the  Galilean  lake."  The 
heart  in  his  bosom  is  warm  and  eager;  but  it  is  a 
common  human  heart,  and  it  is  far  from  a  sinless 
one.  Upon  it,  this  very  morning,  lies,  with  an  in- 
describable shame  and  pain,  the  recent  memory  of 
its  most  dreadful  failure;  that  scene  around. another 
fire  of  coals,  when  a  horrible  bewilderment  of  great 
fear,  an  abject  terror  for  his  mere  mortal  life,  pos- 
sessed him,  and  his  own  ears  heard  his  own  mouth 
call  heaven  and  earth  to  witness  that  he  knew  abso- 
lutely nothing  of  Jesus  the  Nazarene. 

Such  is  the  second  party.  Of  this  man  the  Other 
is  asking,  Do  you  love  Me? 

Now  let  us  for  the  time  put  aside  the  answer  to 
the  inquiry.    I  do  not  propose  here  to  study,  to  dis- 

*  I  quote  the  phrase  from  a  well-remembered  sermon  by 
the  late  Master  of  Trinity  College,  Cambridge,  Dr.  W.  H. 
Thompson. 


170  "LOYEST  THOU  ME?" 


cuss,  St.  Peter's  language  or  St.  Peter's  feeling  as 
indicated  by  St.  John.  I  ask  to  concentrate  our  at- 
tention altogether  upon  the  question,  as  asked — not 
by  anyone,  but  by  Jesus  Christ,  who  had  died  and 
risen  again,  and  who  sate  there  now  in  His  tranquil 
majesty. 

Not  that  I  forget  the  fact  that  it  is  a  question,  and 
expects  an  answer.  No;  I  wish,  above  all  things, 
to  prepare  for  the  answer,  and  that  not  only  as  it 
shall  be  given  by  Peter  in  the  Gospel  narrative,  but 
as  "this  same  Jesus,"  who  lives  to-day  and  is  present 
in  our  assembly  here,  shall  hear  it  spoken  to  Him  by 
our  own  human  hearts.  But  for  that  very  purpose 
let  us  contemplate  the  question. 

"Lovest  thou  Me?"  How  does  this  sound,  as 
regards  the  thought,  the  purpose,  that  lies  behind 
it?  What  does  it  say  about  the  Speaker ?  Perhaps 
it  carries  with  it  at  first,  in  our  apprehension  of  it, 
the  air  of  a  demand — a  claim,  the  levy  of  a  due,  the 
summons  for  an  unpaid  debt.  Here  is  One  who 
knows  (for  He  knows  all  things,  and  this  assuredly 
is  a  fact  present  to  His  mind)  that  the  son  of  Jonas 
is  under  immeasurable  obligations  to  Him,  and  ought 
to  love  Him.  Most  certainly  Jesus,  for  Simon,  has 
done  and  borne  incalculably  much  within  the  last 
few  wonderful  weeks;  Simon  is  infinitely  and  for 
ever  the  better  for  the  Cross  and  Passion.   And  be- 


LOVEST  THOU  ME?"  171 


hind  all,  behind  the  atoning  death,  and  the  sin-cover- 
ing merit,  and  the  robe  of  righteousness,  and  the  re- 
sultant pardon  and  peace  for  this  very  guilty  man — 
behind  it,  and  above  it,  there  lies  all  that  is  implied 
by  the  fact  that  Christ  has  not  only  saved  Peter, 
but  first  made  him.  He  can  claim  the  man's  whole 
being  in  the  double  name  of  Rescuer  and  of  Creator. 

Yes,  all  this  is  the  very  truth — truth  for  me  and 
for  you,  as  much  altogether  as  for  that  Galilean 
penitent  of  old.  But  I  do  not  think  that  we  read 
aright  the  thought  and  accent  of  the  Lord  in  His 
question,  Do  you  love  Me?  if  we  read  into  it  this 
notion — the  exaction  of  a  right,  the  reminder  of  a 
debt.  He  who  knew  the  human  heart  perfectly 
(for  He  has  Himself  a  perfect  human  heart)  would 
not  make  so  profound  a  mistake  as  to  cast  the 
demand  for  payment  into  the  form  of  an  inquiry 
about  love.  We  mortals  and  sinners  may  make 
such  mistakes.  There  are  those,  no  doubt,  who 
blindly  seek  to  claim,  merely  as  a  due,  the  affection, 
for  example,  of  a  child,  the  affection  being  regarded 
as  so  much  return  due  for  so  much  care,  or  as  so 
much  honor  due  to  so  sacred  a  relation.  But  Jesus 
Christ  knew  well  that  human  love,  while  it  is  possible 
and  sometimes  amply  right  to  state  the  theory  of  it 
in  terms  of  duty,  can  never  be  asked  for,  face  to  face, 
except  as  just  the  free  response  to  love;  the  return, 


172  "LOVEST  THOU  ME?' 


the  repercussion,  of  a  tenderness  that  has  first  gone 
freely  out  as  the  unselfish  gift  of  the  asker's  heart. 

Just  this  is  the  beauty,  the  glory,  the  magnetic 
virtue,  once  it  is  apprehended,  of  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ's  inquiry  of  us,  Do  you  love  Me?  It  is  the 
very  touch  which  lifts  the  veil  from  the  heart,  not  of 
Peter,  but  of  Jesus.  In  the  very  act  of  asking  about 
Peter's  love  for  Him  He  discloses  His  love  for 
Peter — a  love  which  is  something  infinitely  different 
from  mere  compassion,  or  mere  benevolence,  or  mere 
condescension.  For  it  is  a  love  which  goes  out 
towards  Peter  so  powerfully,  so  longingly,  with  such 
contact  and  embrace,  that  it  cannot  rest  without  the 
responsive  gaze  and  clasp  of  Peter's  love  to  Jesus. 
The  Lord  is  not  just  stooping  to  say,  "It  is  your 
privilege  to  love  Me."  He  covets  His  sinful  disciple's 
love;  He  wants  it;  it  is  important  to  Him;  it  is 
much  to  Him,  because  He  loves  the  man  with  such 
mighty  love  Himself. 

What  parent  here  does  not  understand  it  ?  When 
your  little  child  first  said,  in  the  sweet  broken  sylla- 
bles of  childhood,  "I  love  you,"  what  did  you  feel? 
That  your  rights  were  recognized  so  fitly  and 
so  early?  That  filial  and  parental  relations  were 
already  on  a  proper  footing?  You  felt  joy,  and  the 
purest  thing  that  can  possibly  be  called  pride;  for 
your  mighty  love  to  your  child  made  its  dawning 


"LOVEST  THOU  ME?" 


173 


love  to  you  indescribably  great  and  important,  and 
the  more  so  the  more  utterly  unforced.  Someone 
has  dared  to  apply  to  our  Redeemer  that  very 
thought,  with  a  truth  great  as  the  simplicity  of  the 
words : 

"The  little  weary  lambs 

He  gently  beareth, 
And  on  His  breast  their  love 
He  proudly  weareth." 

Yes,  Jesus  Christ  cannot  ask  if  Peter  loves  Him, 
and  cannot  ask,  as  He  does  today,  if  we  love  Him, 
without  betraying  how  much,  how  really,  how 
strongly,  He  loves  us. 

As  I  said  just  now,  let  us  in  this  aspect  of  the 
matter  put  aside  the  answer,  and  contemplate  the 
question,  that  is  to  say,  the  Questioner. 

Oh,  human  soul,  here  before  God  to-day,  listen 
to  the  inquiry  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  give  yourself 
time  to  understand  what  it  means  about  Himself. 

Are  you  acquainted  with  grief,  perhaps  such  grief 
— so  long  and  deep — that  it  has  seemed  at  last  rather 
to  benumb  the  heart  than  pierce  it,  yet  leaving  the 
consciousness  of  loss,  of  solitude,  of  change,  only 
too  complete?  Nevertheless,  One  stands  beside 
you  who  covets  the  love  of  your  maimed  and  almost 
paralyzed  spirit.    He  would  be  so  delighted  to  have 


174  "LOVEST  THOU  ME?" 


it!  For  He  greatly  loves  you.  And  listen,  He  is 
asking,  and  it  is  for  that  very  reason  that  He  is 
asking — Do  you  love  Me? 

He  is  acquainted  with  grief  Himself,  in  depths 
which  He  has  sounded  alone.  The  woe  is  over  for 
Him,  but  not  the  experience :  "Souffrir  passe;  avoir 
souffert  demeure  dtemellement."  He  understands 
you,  as  sorrow  understands  sorrow;  but  He  also 
loves  you,  and  He  is  avaricious  of  your  love.  Let 
Him  have  it,  Him  the  eternal  Truth  and  Beauty, 
but  also  the  Brother  and  the  Friend.  And  when 
your  love  has  met  and  satisfied  His,  believe  me, 
there  shall  take  place  a  miracle  at  the  point  of 
contact  ''your  sorrow  shall  be  turned  into  joy." 

Human  heart,  distracted,  bewildered,  preoccupied 
with  we  know  not  what — dissatisfied,  perhaps,  apart 
from  Christ;  perhaps,  far  sadder  still,  satisfied  for 
the  time  apart  from  Him — to-day  let  no  word  be 
spoken  by  me  of  the  vast  truths  which  concern  duty, 
law,  and  judgment  to  come.  It  shall  be  enough 
this  hour  to  say  once  more,  Listen  to  the  asking 
Christ.  Behold  the  Son  of  God !  Behold  the  Man 
of  men !  You  are  profoundly  important  to  Him.  He 
wants,  He  covets  you;  He  will  "proudly  wear" 
your  love;  He  is  asking  whether  it  is  for  Him. 
Let  your  heart  meet  His,  and  for  you  too  the 
contact  shall  work  miracles;  life  shall  be  life  to  you 


LOVEST  THOU  ME?"  175 


now  indeed,  temptations  shall  be  trodden  down 
beneath  you,  pure  joys  all  made  purer,  every  purpose 
lifted,  every  trial  dignified,  and  "life  and  death  and 
then  that  vast  for  ever,"  shall  be  attuned,  by  the 
magic  of  His  sacred  love,  into  "one  grand  sweet 
song." 

"That  ye  may  know  the  love  of  Christ  which 
passeth  knowledge." 

"Lovest  thou  Me?"  O  Love,  that  lovest  me  so 
much  as  to  ask  the  question,  Thou  knowest  that  I 
love  Thee! 


XI 


THE  HOLY  SPIRIT  AND  THE  LOVE  OF 
GOD 

A  Whitsunday  Sermon 

"The  love  of  God  is  shed  abroad  in  our  hearts,  by  the  Holy 
Ghost  which  is  given  unto  us." — Rom.  v.  5. 

Somewhat  more  literally  we  may  read  :  "The  love 
of  God  has  been  poured  out  in  our  hearts,  by  means 
of  the  Holy  Ghost  which  was  given  to  us." 

There  is  a  divine  simplicity  about  these  words. 
They  speak  of  immense  mysteries;  of  God  and  of 
His  inmost  love,  of  the  eternal  Spirit  and  His  in- 
scrutable workings,  and  of  what  is  a  mystery  only 
less  in  order  than  the  things  divine — our  human 
heart.  But  the  words  which  touch  and  indicate 
these  unfathonable  things  are  the  simplest  possible. 
Every  one  of  them  belongs  to  the  plainest  of  plain 
English ;  the  longest  of  them  is  but  a  dissyllable.  And 
this  is  no  rare  phenomenon  in  the  heavenly  Book. 
Again  and  again  the  Bible  speaks  its  plainest  just 
when  it  is  leading  us  into  the  inner  sanctuaries  of 
truth.  It  is  full  of  truths  which  we  cannot  possibly 
"find  out  unto  perfection."    But  it  speaks  as  if  it 

176 


HOLY  SPIRIT  AND  LOVE  OF  GOD.  177 


would  tell  us  all  about  them  that  it  can,  all  that  we 
can  apprehend  to  our  blessing.  The  falsely  mys- 
terious, which  delights  in  "great  swelling  words," 
has  no  place  in  the  Bible. 

Let  us  approach  our  text,  and  interrogate  it.  In 
this  its  divine  simplicity,  what  is  it  saying  to  us 
to-day,  on  this  great  Sunday  of  the  Spirit?  We 
will  seek  our  answer  under  two  or  three  special 
titles. 

i.  "The  Love  of  God":  that  is  to  say,  the  love  felt 
by  God  towards  man,  the  personal  affection  of  the 
Almighty.  Some  have  seen  in  the  words  another 
and  opposite  reference,  as  if  the  Apostle  meant  our 
love  for  God,  our  love  of  God,  as  an  emotion  gener- 
ated, or  liberated,  in  our  hearts  by  the  Holy  Spirit. 
And  some,  more  mystically,  have  read  in  our  text 
the  thought  that  the  Spirit's  work  is  to  infuse  and 
diffuse  within  us  the  eternal  Love  itself  in  such  a 
sense  that  it  becomes,  as  it  were,  our  own,  and 
returns  to  its  source  in  the  incense  of  our  surrender 
to  God,  our  delight  and  rest  in  Him.  But  the  con- 
text (verse  8)  surely  gives  a  decisive  answer  in  favor 
of  the  simplest,  while  most  wonderful,  of  the  refer- 
ence: "God  commendeth  His  Love  tozvard  us,  in 
that  while  we  were  yet  sinners  Christ  died  for  us." 
That  verse  stands  in  close  logical  connection  with 
this,  and  the  reference  must  be  the  same. 


178  HOLY  SPIRIT  AND  LOVE  OF  GOD. 


"The  Love  of  God,"  then,  His  "marvelous  loving- 
kindness,"  as  the  Psalmist  has  it;*  the  tenderness 
and  endearment  of  Him  who  is  Love,  towards  us 
sinners,  toward  us  who  have  fled  from  ourselves  to 
Him  and  "laid  hold  on  His  strength  and  made  peace 
with  Him"  in  His  own  way — this  is  the  particular 
reference  here  of  "the  love  of  God."  It  is  the  kind- 
ness of  the  eternal  Heart  towards  those  who  believe, 
towards  the  Lord's  own,  "the  children  of  men  who 
put  their  trust"  in  the  deep  "shadow  of  His  wings." 

Abundantly  true  it  is  that  the  Scriptures  speak, 
amply,  magnificently,  of  a  love  of  God  which  is  over 
all  His  works.  "God  loved  the  world,"  and  "so" 
loved  it — not  the  Church,  not  the  saints,  not  the 
chosen,  but  the  world.  With  the  love  of  an  in- 
finitely "faithful  Creator,"!  He  loved,  and  loves,  the 
world,  and  from  that  love  flows  the  whole  tide  of 
benignant  providence  and  all  the  sweetness  of  the 
message  of  the  Gospel  to  "whosoever  will."  But 
this  glorious  exterior  circle  leaves  undimmed  to  our 
view  in  Scripture  the  "glory  that  excelleth,"  the 
inner  circle,  the  love  of  the  Lord  for  His  own,  His 
ransomed,  His  saved,  "the  flock  of  the  high  heavenly 
Pastor,  Christ"  (to  use  Ridley's  almost  dying 
words),  those  who  "hear  His  voice  and  follow 
Him,"  and  whom  He  "knows  by  name."  This  love 
*  Ps.  xvii.  7.  1 1  Pet.  iv.  19. 


HOLY  SPIRIT  AND  LOVE  OF  GOD.  179 


is  peculiar  and  distinctive,  a  light  in  the  inner  Sanc- 
tuary, beaming  above  the  Ark  of  the  better  Cove- 
nant, within  the  veil  where  the  Forerunner  has 
gone  in.* 

The  two  spheres  are  in  concentric  harmony.  It 
is  so  (if  we  may  illustrate  God  by  man)  in  human 
things.  Not  seldom  has  been  seen  the  beautiful 
phenomenon  of  the  philanthropist  who  is  also  the 
ideal  father,  or  ideal  mother — a  Fowell  Buxton,  an 
Elizabeth  Fry;  a  life  which  to  the  world  is  known 
for  its  devotion  to  mankind  in  large  and  far-seeing 
enterprises  and  sacrifices,  but  which  to  the  nearer 
circle  is  known  as  the  glowing  center  of  home  affec- 
tions and  intimate  friendships.  And  can  we  not 
think  so  of  the  Eternal  and  Almighty?  His  uni- 
versal lovingkindness — this  is  one  thing,  and  a  thing 
more  wide  and  deep  than  created  thought  can 
measure.  But  His  special,  inmost  love  to  His  own 
regenerate  children  in  His  own  Son — this  is  another 
thing,  and  nearer  still  to  the  heart  of  all  life  and  bliss. 

Of  this  the  text  is  speaking.  For  the  Apostle 
has  just  been  leading  us  up,  along  the  golden  stairs 
of  his  great  Epistle,  to  the  peace  and  joy  of  those 
who  have  obtained  salvation.  We  have  traveled  by 
the  way  of  the  Cross,  by  the  way  of  faith,  to  the 
wonderful  rest  of  justification,  and  into  the  very 
*  Heb.  vi.  19,  20. 


i8o  HOLY  SPIRIT  AND  LOVE  OF  GOD. 


righteousness  of  God.  We  have  heard  how  those 
who  believe  possess  peace  with  Him,  and  rejoice  in 
Him,  and  in  the  hope  of  His  glory.  And  these  are 
the  persons  in  view  in  this  text  of  ours,  with  its 
words  about  "the  love  of  God."  It  is  no  vague 
description,  no  portrait  which  may  be  meant  for 
anyone.  It  means  not  all  and  sundry  who  pass 
under  the  Christian  name ;  would  to  God  that  name 
and  thing  were  so  linked  together  that  it  could  do 
so !  But  only  those  answer  the  description  here  who 
have  actually  "come"  to  the  personal  Redeemer  to 
have  life,  only  those  who,  by  grace,  have  said  "Yes" 
to  grace,  and  entered  into  Christ. 

Such  is  the  burthen  and  the  bearing  of  the  words. 
Behold  this  inner  love  of  God,  His  family  love! 
"What  manner  of  love  hath  the  Father  bestowed" 
upon  that  happy  circle!  It  is  as  free  and  unbought 
as  mercy  can  be;  for,  as  St.  Paul  goes  on  to  say,  it 
first  went  forth  in  its  tender  power  when  they  were 
"sinners" — yes,  when  they  were  "enemies"  and  "un- 
godly." But  it  is  as  genuine,  as  warm,  as  strong 
and  deep,  as  it  is  unmerited.  The  love  of  the  Father 
for  His  children  of  the  new  birth — behold  what  it 
is !  "Now  are  they  the  sons  of  God" ;  and  hereafter, 
when  their  Lord,  their  Elder  Brother,  shall  be  mani- 
fested, it  shall  be  manifested  what  they  are  made 


HOLY  SPIRIT  AND  LOVE  OF  GOD.  181 


for,  in  the  love  of  God ;  "they  shall  be  like  Him,  for 
they  shall  see  Him  as  He  is."* 

ii.  "The  love  of  God  is  shed  abroad"  or,  more  lit- 
erally, "hath  been  outpoured,"  "in  our  hearts."  The 
phrase  is  beautifully  vivid.  You  cannot  take  it  to 
pieces  and  analyze  it  and  explain  the  process,  but 
you  can  know  what  it  means.  To  these  human  hearts 
of  ours,  deep  in  these  living,  heaving,  conscious 
worlds  within,  in  the  very  "springs  of  thought, 
and  will,"  and  affection,  there  can  be  somehow 
granted  the  view  of  this  love  as  a  fact,  the  sense  and 
grasp  of  this  love  as  a  possession.  It  is  there,  poured 
out.  It  is  no  alien  and  separable  insertion.  It  is 
poured  out.  Like  the  shower  from  the  soft  cloud, 
like  the  odor  from  the  flower,  it  is  there;  shed 
abroad,  suffused,  pervading,  changing,  beautifying, 
glorifying  all. 

Manifestly  it  was  not  so  once.  These  hearts  were 
once  as  little  possessed  of  this  wonderful  outpour- 
ing as  the  brown  field  in  the  year  of  drought  is  pos- 
sessed of  the  genial  rain.  The  "outpouring"  is  now 
within,  it  is  in  the  depths;  but  it  was  from  above; 
"not  of  yourselves,  it  is  the  gift  of  God."f 

Does  this  view  of  the  matter  seem  to  any  of  us  an 
unreality,  a  thing  of  vision  and  enthusiasm?  Per- 
haps nothing  in  your  experience  corresponds  to  it  as 
*  i  John  iii.  2.  t  Eph.  ii.  8. 


1 82   HOLY  SPIRIT  AND  LOVE  OF  GOD. 


yet.  You  have  never,  perhaps,  been  much  disturbed 
in  thought  about  your  relations  to  God.  His  general 
kindliness  and  benignity,  His  "world-love,"  has 
seemed  to  you  enough,  or  it  seems  to  you  sufficient 
that  you  are  by  baptism  a  member  of  the  "congre- 
gation of  the  faithful."  May  you  not  on  that  account 
reckon  upon  a  special  form  of  His  general  loving- 
kindness?  Well,  let  us  at  least  ask  the  question 
whether  such  a  view  of  things  squares  with  the 
message  of  St.  Paul.  What  he  speaks  of  here  is, 
in  his  theory  of  it,  a  thing  open  and  common,  from 
one  point  of  view,  to  all  believers,  to  them  all  and 
to  no  other,  while  from  the  other  point  of  view  it  is 
a  "secret  of  the  Lord."  It  is  a  thing  "outpoured  in 
the  heart,"  in  a  way  infinitely  above  nature,  while 
perfectly  genuine  and  recognizable  in  experience. 
Our  text,  and  the  paragraph  of  which  it  is  a  part,  are 
no  flourish  of  unmeaning  rhetoric.  They  point  to  a 
divinely-caused  change  in  the  soul's  knowledge  of 
the  love  of  God.  Do  they  point  any  of  us  to  a 
range  of  facts  as  yet  indeed  to  us  unknown,  but 
which  is  knowable,  and  infinitely  good  to  know  ? 

There  are  those  who  know.    "The  secret  of  the 
Lord  is    with  them;  He  has  shewn  them  His 
covenant."*    They  may  be  slow  to  speak  about  it, 
for  fear  of  seeming  to  proclaim  not  their  Master  but 
*  Ps.  xxv.  14. 


HOLY  SPIRIT  AND  LOVE  OF  GOD.  183 


themselves;  but  when  they  can  rightly  speak,  they 
have  indeed  a  secret  to  disclose.  "This  I  know, 
thanks  to  His  grace.  Once  I  heard  of  Him,  but  did 
not  know  Him;  I  did  not,  I  could  not,  see  or  ap- 
prehend the  love  of  God.  The  fact  of  His  love  in 
general,  perhaps,  I  owned;  but  it  was  at  best  a  thing 
of  distance  and  of  shadows.  Sometimes  I  wondered, 
sometimes  I  asked  of  others,  what  it  could  be  like, 
what  was  the  sensation,  the  consciousness,  the  expe- 
rience, of  'knowing  the  love  of  God.'  Now  I  know. 
Whereas  I  was  blind,  now  I  see;  whereas  I  was  in- 
sensible to  that  light  and  heat,  now  I  love,  because 
He  first  loved  me.  My  Father's  smile  is  upon  me, 
shining  through  the  Son,  who  is  infinitely  dear  to 
Him,  and  who  has  joined  me  to  Himself.  I  had 
once  'the  spirit  of  bondage,  unto  fear.'  Now  I 
'cry,'  as  with  the  confidence  and  simplicity  of  child- 
hood at  home,  'Abba,  Father.'*  Slow  or  sudden, 
the  change  has  come,  the  new  life  is  here.  The  love 
of  God  has  been  poured  out  in  my  heart." 

This  is  no  phantom,  dream,  or  poem;  it  is  an 
experienced  possibility.  A  human  soul  which 
yesterday  was  full  of  misgivings  about  God,  or 
paralyzed  in  indifference  to  Him,  to-day  is  able  to 
say,  with  strong  and  sober  certainty,  with  the  clear 
persuasion  of  a  true  sight  of  Him  in  Christ  Jesus, 
*  Rom.  viii.  15. 


1 84  HOLY  SPIRIT  AND  LOVE  OF  GOD. 


"I  know  whom  I  have  believed";  "He  hath  loved 
me  and  given  Himself  for  me";  "Behold,  what 
manner  of  love  to  me!";  "I  am  persuaded  that 
neither  life  nor  death  shall  be  able  to  separate  me 
from  the  love  of  God,  which  is  in  Christ  Jesus  our 
Lord." 

To-day,  as  ever,  the  eternal  Friend  stands  at  the 
idoor  and  knocks,  that  He  may  come  in  with  that 
light  in  His  hand,  and  make  the  dreary  darkness 
to  be  day.  To-day,  as  of  old,  when  that  door  is 
opened,  His  entrance  brings  a  wonderful  reality  of 
joy:  "I  will  manifest  myself  to  Him."* 

iii.  Now  in  orjder  we  come  to  the  glory  of  Whit- 
Sunday.  We  name  the  name  of  that  ever-blessed 
Agent  by  whom,  in  the  heart's  depths,  this  work 
is  done,  this  love  poured  out,  this  Lord  revealed 
and  introduced :    "By  the  Holy  Ghost." 

To-day  is  Pentecost,  the  memorial  of  that  great 
hour  of  the  eternal  Spirit  when  He  came  indeed, 
and  behold,  that  small  primeval  Church,  in  the 
supernatural  strength  of  the  joy  of  the  Lord,  the 
joy  which  bursts  radiant  forth  from  the  love  of  the 
Lord,  arose  and  shook  the  world,  and  brought  it 
such  a  blessing  as  it  had  never  known  before.  To- 
day the  Church  spreads  out  before  us,  large  and 
full,  the  truth  of  God  about  His  Spirit.    We  are 

*  Rev.  iii.  20 ;  John  xiv.  21. 


HOLY  SPIRIT  AND  LOVE  OF  GOD.  185 


made  to  hear  to-day  of  His  great  work  of  visible  and 
public  power,  when  the  wind  blew  from  the  very 
Throne,  and  the  fiery  tongues  were  showered  from 
the  Seven  Lamps  that  burn  before  it.  And  we  are 
made  to  hear  also,  in  our  appointed  Scriptures,  of 
His  personal,  separate,  secret  work  of  heavenly 
grace  in  the  individual  soul;  of  the  Comforter's 
dealing  with  the  man  so  that  the  Father  and  the 
Son  come  to  him,  and  make  Their  abode  with  him; 
of  the  Spirit's  blessed  "fruit"  of  pure  and  gracious 
holiness;  of  the  infinite  necessity  of  His  special 
presence  in  us;  for  "if  any  man  have  not  the  Spirit 
of  Christ,  he  is  none  of  His."* 

Manifold  are  His  gifts,  His  works.  Vast  indeed 
is  the  importance  to  our  life  and  peace  of  clear 
views  of  what  He  is.  It  is  blessed  to  know  that 
indeed  it  is  He,  not  only  it;  that  He  is  no  mere 
gale  of  power,  no  mysterious  "somewhat"  of  efflu- 
ence and  influence,  but  the  personal  Friend  and  Lord, 
coming  to  His  temples,  f  to  bless  them  with  His  own 
loving  gifts  of  life,  of  purity,  of  power.  But  for 
this  one  time  of  meditation  take  this  one  sacred  fact 
about  Him,  this  one  side  and  aspect  of  the  mighty 
range  of  His  glory  and  His  operation.  Think  of 
Him  as  the  eternal  personal  Worker  and  Teacher, 

*  See  John  xiv.,  Acts  ii.,  Rom.  viii.,  Gal.  v. 
1 1  Cor.  vi.  19. 


186     HOLY  SPIRIT  AND  LOVE  OF  GOD. 


understanding,  handling,  penetrating,  knowing  His 
own  way  in  that  heart  of  yours,  and  taking  His  own 
way  to  bless  it.  Recollect  Him  as  somehow  able, 
in  His  personal  action,  to  make  the  cold,  indifferent, 
sinful  soul  see,  and  apprehend,  and  know,  and  em- 
brace, and  answer  to,  the  love  of  God — the  inner 
love  of  God.  Remember  Him  as  personally  able  to 
manipulate  that  once  rebellious  will ;  sometimes  by 
insensible  degrees,  sometimes  by  decisive  convictions 
and  a  crisis  of  change  memorable  to  you  for  ever  and 
ever.  Behold  Him;  He  is  the  Convincer,  bringing 
home  to  us — home,  indeed — "sin  and  righteousness 
and  judgment."  He  is  the  Revealer;  He  unveils 
Christ,  He  explains  Him  and  glorifies  Him,  and 
applies  Him  as  vital  balm  to  the  aching  spirit, 
which  in  the  reality  of  its  "exceeding  need"  applies 
itself  to  Christ.  Then  does  the  man,  this  man  of 
like  passions  with  us,  receive  in  his  heart  the  effusion 
of  the  eternal  Love.  He  knows  it,  and  believes  it* 
The  pardon,  the  more  than  pardon,  he  knows  it 
now;  it  is  a  fact;  for  Jesus  Christ  is  a  fact  indeed 
to  him.  He  sees  with  a  new  intuition  now  some- 
thing of  his  Lord's  glorious  beauty.  He  finds  in 
genuine  operation  the  power  of  his  Lord's  presence 
in  him,  its  power  to  subdue  iniquity,  to  annul  the 
tempter's  besetting  strength,  to  make  it  sweet  and 
*John  iv.  16. 


HOLY  SPIRIT  AND  LOVE  OF  GOD.  187 


pleasant  to  do  "from  the  soul"  the  will  of  God; 
studying  to  please  Him  who,  in  His  astonishing 
love,  cares  that  we  sinners  should  love  Him.  Yes, 
the  Spirit  works,  deep  at  the  center,  and  so  Christ,  in 
whom  is  the  whole  love  of  God,  becomes  there  "a 
living,  bright  reality,"  a  joy  unspeakable,  the  Secret 
of  the  eternal  Heart. 

iv.  "The  Holy  Ghost  which  was  given  unto  us." 
"Given !"  Let  us  note  that  word  as  we  close.  He 
is  indeed  a  Gift,  "the  Gift  unspeakable,"  the  Gift  of 
God.  Here  is  no  mere  evolution  from  within,  nor 
assimilation  from  around ;  He  is  the  Gift  from  above. 
"From  the  height  above  all  measure"  must  "the  gra- 
cious show  descend" ;  not  otherwise  can  this  knowl- 
edge of  the  eternal  Love  be  won  by  these  happy  ones, 
these  temples  of  the  Spirit. 

And  may  we  also,  such  as  we  are,  such  as  we 
know  ourselves  to  be,  share  the  inestimable  boon? 
Is  it  not  for  the  elite,  the  aristocracy,  of  holiness, 
for  apostles,  prophets,  martyrs,  solitaries,  heroes? 
No,  no;  it  is  "not  according  to  our  works."  It  is 
without  such  miserable  price  and  money  as  man  can 
pay.  It  is  on  a  better  condition — "according  to  His 
abundant  mercy,"  and  "for  every  one  that  asketh." 
"For  if  we,  being  evil,  give,"  as  we  delight  to  do, 
"good  gifts  to  our  children,  how  much  more  shall 
our  heavenly  Father  give  His  Holy  Spirit — to  them 
that  ask  Him?" 


XII 


THE  ANGEL'S  VISIT 

Preached  at  Keswick,  before  a  Congregation  of  Ministers  of 
Religion 

"I  am  Gabriel,  that  stand  in  the  presence  of  God,  and  I  am 
sent  to  speak  unto  thee." — Luke  i,  19. 

Here  is  the  utterance  of  an  Angel,  a  voice  of  per- 
sonal consciousness  and  experience  from  another  or- 
der of  being  than  our  own.  But  we  men  continually 
pray,  as  our  Master  has  bid  us  do,  that  the  will  of 
God  may  be  done  on  earth  "as  it  is  done  in  heaven." 
Then  many  a  priceless  lesson  for  Christian  life  and 
labor  in  general,  and  for  the  work  of  the  Christian 
Ministry  in  particular,  may  be  rightly  drawn  from 
what  the  holy  Book  reveals  to  us  of  the  Angels,  of 
their  life,  their  conduct,  their  attitude  of  thought  and 
will,  what  they  are,  and  what  they  know  themselves 
to  be. 

This  short  sentence,  our  text,  is  a  case  in  point. 
Here  comes  an  Angel  from  before  the  eternal  Throne 
to  speak  with  Zacharias  in  the  sanctuary  on  earth. 
The  man,  awe-stricken,  amazed,  bewildered,  falters 
a  request  to  his  Visitor  to  produce,  as  it  were,  his 
credentials,  to  give  assurance  of  the  reality  of  his 

188 


THE  ANGEL'S  VISIT.  189 


presence  and  the  validity  of  his  message.  And  the 
reply  is  as  we  have  read :  "I  am  Gabriel,  that  stand 
in  the  presence  of  God,  and  I  am  sent  to  speak  to 
thee." 

In  every  part  of  this  utterance  there  is  something 
which  meets  the  heart  of  the  human  minister  of 
our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  reminds  him  of  essential 
principles  of  ministerial  life  and  function.  May  He, 
who  is  Master  at  once  of  us  and  of  "our  eldier 
brethren  of  the  sky,"  speak  to  us  articulately  of  these 
things  in  the  soul,  as  we  study  this  sentence,  spoken 
on  earth,  yet  from  another  world. 

We  might  dwell  awhile  upon  the  Angel's  utter- 
ance of  his  own  personal  name,  Gabriel,  God's  Man: 
"I  am  Gabriel" ;  listening  with  wondering  interest  to 
this  avowal  that  the  voice  comes  from  a  personality, 
an  Ego,  conscious,  and  willing,  and  denominated 
personally,  and  that  the  speaker  is  in  intimate  and 
living  relations  with  a  personal  Supreme,  our  God 
and  his.  But  let  us  pass  on  at  once  (remarking 
this  merely  by  the  way)  to  Gabriel's  account  of  his 
serving  life,  and  of  its  inner  secrets,  and  of  its  issues 
in  action  for  his  Lord.  And  herein  first  note  the 
words :    "I  stand  in  the  presence  of  God." 

My  brethren  of  the  holy  Ministry,  here  is  indeed  a 
motto,  a  legend,  for  our  ministerial  lives.    "I  stand 


190 


THE  ANGEL'S  VISIT. 


in  the  presence  of  God."  Observe  the  import  of 
each  phrase. 

i.  "In  the  presence  of  God."  The  existence  of  the 
great  Angel  was,  and  is,  an  existence  in  the  Pres- 
ence, in  the  secret  of  the  Presence.  He  was  what  he 
was,  as  abiding  there,  as  knowing  face  to  face  his 
eternal  King,  his  Maker,  Master.  All.  You  know 
possibly  a  singularly  beautiful  hymn,  given  to  us  by 
the  pen,  or  rather  through  the  illuminated  soul,  of 
a  gifted  Indian  lady,  Miss  Ellen  Goreh;  a  hymn  be- 
ginning, 

"In  the  secret  of  His  Presence 
How  my  soul  delights  to  hide!" 

a  hymn  which  may  well  be  a  hidden  treasure  in  the 
memory  of  every  minister  of  Christ.  Now,  the 
truth  sung  of  in  that  hymn  forms  the  law  of  the  an- 
gelic life,  of  the  will  and  work  of  a  Gabriel.  Would 
we  do  the  eternal  Will  on  earth  as  it  is  done  by  Ga- 
briel in  heaven?  "In  the  presence  of  God"  must  be 
our  motto,  not  for  times  and  places  only  which  we 
call  sacred;  no,  "it  is  very  meet,  right,  and  our 
bounden  duty  that  we  should  at  all  times,  and  in  all 
places,"  abide  in  the  Presence,  "dwelling  with  the 
King,  for  His  work." 

ii.  But  observe  again.  The  blessed  Hierarch  does 
not  only  exist  "in  the  presence  of  God."  Listen  to 
him:    "I  stand  in  the  Presence."    It  is  a  note- 


THE  ANGEL'S  VISIT.  191 


worthy  stroke  in  this  bright,  sudden  picture  of  celes- 
tial life.  In  that  Presence,  undoubtedly,  he  rests,  in 
the  sense  of  unutterable  content,  and  walks,  in  the 
sense  of  perfect  internal  freedom,  and  dwells,  in  the 
sense  of  being  eternally  and  inalienably  at  home. 
But  the  fact  which  is  above  all  present  to  his  ethereal 
consciousness  is  this :    "I  stand  in  the  Presence." 

Here  is  the  attitude  of  the  Servant.  He  is  pro- 
foundly intimate  with  the  Master  of  his  being;  he  is 
admitted  to,  he  is  conversant  with,  the  Sanctum,  yea, 
the  Sanctum  Sanctorum;  he  treads  not  the  outer 
court  only  of  the  Unseen,  but  its  Holy  Place ;  he  does 
not  "sit  in  the  King's  gate"  only,  he  "sees  the  King's 
face"  in  the  King's  innermost  chamber.  But,  there- 
fore, because  it  is  the  inmost  place,  and  not  the 
outermost,  because  in  a  sense  so  divinely  special 
the  King  is  there,  therefore,  while  the  Master  sits, 
the  servant  stands. 

Such  is  the  law  of  the  blessed  life  of  this  immor- 
tal messenger  of  God.  Wherever  he  is,  locally,  as 
we  conceive  locality,  whether  "in  heaven"  itself, 
whether  "caused  to  fly  swiftly"  to  Daniel  at  the  Per- 
sian court,*  whether  at  Jerusalem  on  his  errand  to 
Zacharias,  or  at  Nazareth  on  that  surpassing  errand 
to  Mary — always,  "in  spirit,"  he  is  "standing  in  the 
presence  of  God." 

*  Dan.  ix.  21. 


192 


THE  ANGEL'S  VISIT. 


We  too  must  be  there,  and  we  too  must  there  be 
standing.  Never,  by  the  grace  of  our  Master,  let  us 
really  forget,  let  us  really  quit,  that  spiritual  atti- 
tude, the  position  of  the  servant  who  stands,  what- 
ever, from  other  points  of  view,  may  be  our  blessed 
privileges  of  liberty  and  of  holy  rest. 

For  Gabriel  that  standing  attitude  is  immortally 
lasting  and  the  same.  Nineteen  ages  have  rolled 
away  since  that  hour  of  incense  in  the  Temple;  but 
his  station  is  the  same.  To-day,  as  then,  Gabriel  is 
personally  the  same,  the  same  "I"  that  spoke  its  con- 
sciousness and  its  name  to  the  wondering  priest; 
and  to-day,  as  then,  he  is  standing,  upright  and  un- 
wearied, in  the  Presence.  And  we,  too,  are  never, 
yes,  truly  never,  to  be  released  from  our  "standing" 
there,  from  our  attitude  as  the  servants,  the  servants 
ready  for  orders  and  action,  who  "see  the  King's 
face,"  attentive  to  His  Will.  Never  are  we  to  cease 
so  to  "stand"  on  earth,  and  never  in  the  coming  life 
of  heaven. 

"For  He  hath  met  our  longing 

With  words  of  golden  tone, 
That  we  shall  'serve  for  ever' 

Himself,  Himself  alone — 
Shall  serve  Him,  and  for  ever. 

O  hope  most  sure,  most  fair, 
The  perfect  love  outpouring 

In  perfect  service  there."* 


*  Miss  Havergal. 


THE  ANGEL'S  VISIT. 


193 


Let  us  look  up  to  Him  who  "is  able  to  make  us 
stand,"  that  this  "law  may  be  written  in  our  hearts" ; 
that  this  may  lie  deep  among  the  inmost  secrets 
of  our  ministerial  will  and  work.  "1  stand  in  the 
Presence." 

iii.  But  Gabriel  has  more  to  say:  "And  I  am 
sent  to  speak  unto  thee." 

"I  am  sent."  It  is  not  my  purpose  to-day  to  dis- 
course upon  the  principles  and  the  warrant  of  minis- 
terial commission,  in  the  sense  of  ministerial  author- 
ity. Let  me  rather  address  myself  to  what  is,  after 
all,  the  supremely  important  matter  for  the  soul  of 
the  minister  himself — to  the  ministerial  commission 
as  it  suggests  the  thought  of  our  subjection,  our 
servitude,  to  Another;  of  our  being  but  means  and 
implements,  yea,  of  our  being  in  ourselves  "nothing, 
nothing,"  apart  from  the  Sender  of  His  servants. 

"/  am  sent,"  says  the  great  Angel ;  not  merely,  "I 
come,"  "I  am  here,"  but,  "/  am  sent."  I  stand  in 
the  Presence,  a  servant  there.  I  have  indeed  such 
an  open  vision  of  my  Master's  face  as  makes  me,  in 
indescribable  reality,  His  friend.  But  none  the  less 
I  am,  eternally  and  absolutely,  His  servant;  and 
now,  in  regard  to  thee  whom  I  address,  I  come 
to  thee  simply  as  His  servant,  His  servant  sent 
upon  His  work.  My  message  is  not  what  I  have 
thought  fit  to  bring;  I  am  enjoined  to  bring  it.  I 


THE  ANGEL'S  VISIT. 


have  not  come  to  lord  it  over  thee,  and  to  impose 
myself  on  thee;  I  am  thy  fellow-servant,  and  to 
thee,  ex  aequo,  I  am  sent. 

The  Angel's  words  in  the  sanctuary  at  Jerusalem 
recall  to  me  certain  words,  spoken  in  a  very  different 
scene,  and  by  a  mortal  speaker;  they  are  found  in 
Genesis  xxiv.  That  episode  of  the  divine  Book,  self- 
evidential  of  its  own  veracity  and  historicity,  by 
its  union  of  minutely  acurate  "local  color"  with  a 
majestic  moral  simplicity,  presents  us  with  "Abra- 
ham's servant,"  illustrious  personage  among  the 
goodly  company  of  the  saintly  servants  of  Scripture. 
We  see  him,  this  Eliezer  (for  we  will  take  it  for 
granted  that  this  is  Eliezer  of  Damascus),  the  hon- 
ored and  honorable  confidant  of  that  memorable 
master,  who  talks  with  him  as  with  a  friend  in 
God,  and  sends  him  on  his  errand  graced  with  so 
much  equipage  and  dignity  that  the  high-born  Re- 
bekah,  at  the  well,  accosts  him,  in  the  fine  natural 
courtesy  of  the  East,  as  some  great  one:  "Drink, 
my  lord."  He  is  received  into  the  house  at  Haran 
with  distinguished  attention,  and  respectfully  ques- 
tioned about  his  errand  to  his  hosts.  And  then  he 
speaks,  introducing  himself  with  the  quiet  dignity  of 
one  who  cares  to  seem  only  what  he  is:  "I  am 
Abraham's  servant,  Abraham's  ebhed,  SoOUs, — ,  bond- 
man." Yes,  that  is  what  he  is.  Abraham  had  either 


THE  ANGEL'S  VISIT.  195 


actually  purchased  him,  or  he  was  the  son  of  one 
whom  Abraham  had  purchased;  "born  in  his  house." 
Under  conditions  of  society  then  permitted  by  God, 
he  was  Abraham's  chattel,  his  piece  of  property, 
and  he  said  that  it  was  so.  This  man  of  noble 
heart  and  personal  dignity,  dignified  by  the  intimacy 
and  confidence  of  the  Friend  of  God,  his  master, 
able  to  enter  into  the  conceptions  and  purposes  of 
an  Abraham,  drinking  deep  of  Abraham's  spirit  of 
faith  and  patience — all  that  this  man  cares  to  say  of 
himself  is  this,  'T  am  Abraham's  bond-servant,  and 
I  am  sent."  He  was  not  on  his  own  business,  but 
his  master's.  So  far  from  seeking  his  own,  he  was 
(may  we  not  say,  looking  at  Gen.  xv.  3?)  actually 
taking  measures  to  shut  himself  out  of  a  wealth 
which  might  otherwise  have  been  his  inheritance. 
It  mattered  not.  He  belonged;  he  was  not  his 
own.    "I  am  Abraham's  servant." 

This  is  a-  noble  picture ;  I  know  none  fairer  of  its 
kind,  even  in  the  Scriptures  themselves.  But  is  it 
not  more  than  noble?  Is  it  not  written  for  our 
learning?  It  is  assuredly  for  us,  who,  in  a  sense  so 
special  and  so  merciful,  are  called  to  be  the  servants 
of  the  Eternal  Friend  of  Abraham.  It  is  for  us,  to 
lay  it  upon  us  ministers  of  God  and  of  His  Word  that 
we  never,  no,  never,  pass  ourselves  off  to  those  whom 
we  approach  as  anything  but  the  bond-servants  of 


196 


THE  ANGEL'S  VISIT. 


Christ,  and  therefore  "ourselves  their  bond-servants, 
for  His  sake."* 

But  Gabriel  still  stands  by  the  golden  altar  and 
the  incense-cloud,  and  speaks  to  the  old  priest  there. 
Listen  to  him  again  with  all  the  heart.  Again  let 
him  say  the  words,  in  our  hearing,  and  for  us :  "I 
stand  in  the  presence  of  God,  and  I  am  sent." 
Every  syllable  is  instinct  with  the  spirit  which  for- 
gets the  self  of  the  servant  in  the  peace  and  glad- 
ness of  the  heavenly  service.  The  Angel  lives,  not 
unto  himself,  but  unto  Him  whose  face  he  sees, 
and  whose  will  he  serves  for  ever. 

We  do  not  conceive  of  the  angelic  life  as  a  life 
stunted  and  confined,  unsatisfied  and  ill  at  ease. 
We  think  of  it,  and  rightly — for  such  is  the  indica- 
tion of  the  divine  Scriptures — as  a  life  that  "excels 
in  strength/'f  an(^  whose  course  and  tenor  is  a  song 
of  mighty  joy.  Yes,  but  none  the  less  (we  should 
instantly  say  "all  the  more,"  were  the  whole  condi- 
tions of  happiness  better  understood  by  us),  its  law 
is  an  absolute  subservience  to  the  will  and  glory  of 
God ;  an  eternal  standing  in  the  Presence,  a  ceaseless 
going  forth  on  the  work  to  which  the  great  Master 
sends,  and  this  in  order  to  do  and  to  say  what 
shall  bring  honor,  not  to  the  servant,  but  to  his 
King.    The  elect  Angels,  as  by  a  sacred  necessity  of 

*  2  Cor.  iv.  5.  t  Ps.  ciii.  20. 


THE  ANGEL'S  VISIT.  197 


their  nature  and  its  bliss,  shrink  back  from  glory 
and  worship  paid  to  themselves.  If  not  Gabriel 
himself,  it  was  a  true  brother  of  his  heavenly  family 
who  said,  when  the  entranced  Apostle  fell  at  his  feet, 
"See  thou  do  it  not,  for  I  am  thy  fellow-servant."* 

There  is  very  little  risk  that  any  of  our  hearers, 
any  of  our  neighbors,  should  fall  at  our  feet  to 
worship  us.  But  there  is  more  than  a  little  risk — 
such  is  the  human  heart  in  the  breast  of  the  human 
minister — that  we  may,  at  the  least  invitation  of 
human  applause,  or  even  of  human  kindness,  fall 
down  and  worship  ourselves.  You  know  well  what 
I  mean;  the  subtle  temptations  to  self-praise,  to 
self-esteem,  to  an  appropriation  to  ourselves  of  an 
applause  which  is  our  Lord's  alone,  which  can 
spring  from  almost  nothing — when  the  man  is  off  his 
guard.  But  by  the  grace  of  Him  "whose  we  are  and 
whom  we  serve,"  by  that  immeasurable  grace  which 
can  possess  even  us,  it  shall  not  be.  We  will,  in 
watchful  faith,  entrust  it  to  His  power  that  it  shall 
not  be ;  that  in  this  thing  also,  by  His  power  work- 
ing in  us,  His  will  shall  be  done  in  us  on  earth  as  it 
is  done  in  heaven. 

Our  work  of  ministry  brings  us  often  weariness, 
and  sometimes,  if  we  are  found  faithful,  it  brings  us 
reproach.    But  does  it  not  also,  if  in  any  degree  at 
*  Rev.  xxii  9. 


198 


THE  ANGEL'S  VISIT. 


all  we  are  enabled  to  work  for  our  Lord  and  in  Him, 
bring  us  also  surprising  gifts,  ever  and  anon,  of 
allowance  and  of  kindness  from  the  brethren  to 
whom  we  minister?  Yes;  and  in  view  of  all  this 
we  now  humbly  resolve,  as  in  His  presence,  as 
standing  there,  and  sent  only  from  thence,  that 
whatever  henceforth  of  acceptance,  or  commenda- 
tion, or  affection,  shall  come  to  us  as  ministers  of 
Jesus  Christ,  it  shall  not  be  fuel  for  the  flame  of 
self;  it  shall  be  "henceforth  no  longer  for  ourselves, 
but  for  Him  who  died  for  us,  and  rose  again."  The 
tribute  shall  not  be  slipped  into  our  own  purse,  for 
that  is  theft;  it  shall  be  passed  on  at  once  to  the 
Master  to  whom  it  belongs,  for  we  belong  to  Him. 
We  will  accept  no  secret  and  surreptitious  bounties 
behind  His  back. 

I  say  this,  my  brethren,  as  myself  desiring  to  hear 
it,  and  as  knowing  that  it  will  be  welcome  to  your 
hearts,  taught  by  the  Holy  Ghost.  It  shall  be  so. 
We  too,  like  those  who  serve  above,  are  called  to 
stand  in  the  Presence.  We  too  are  nothing  if  not 
the  purchased  bond-servants  of  the  heavenly  Abra- 
ham. And  as  such  we  will  appropriate  no  contribu- 
tions to  self-complacency  in  our  work  for  our  Mas- 
ter, not  even  from  our  Master's  friends.  As  His, 
we  are  outside  of  it,  we  are  above  it,  we  are  beyond 
it.    What  He  has  given  to  us  to  be,  to  have,  to  hold 


THE  ANGEL'S  VISIT.  199 


for  Him,  we  will  now  and  evermore  be  passing  on 
and  giving  back  at  once  to  Him  whose  only  right  it 
is. 

So  I  leave  this  utterance  of  the  Angel's  voice 
upon  our  souls  for  our  guidance,  strength,  and 
peace,  by  the  grace  of  our  Lord  and  King.  Be  it 
henceforth,  more  than  ever  yet,  the  inmost  thought 
of  each  pastoral  heart :  "I  am  the  servant  of  Jesus 
Christ;  in  His  presence,  standing  in  His  presence, 
sent  from  His  presence,  yet  sent  in  His  presence 
still.  I  am  nothing  outside  this.  And  I  come,  O 
men  and  brethren,  to  you  as  a  man  who  is  not 
your  master,  but  only  sent,  'under  athority,'  from 
my  Master,  to  speak  to  you,  to  serve  you.  I  present 
myself  before  you  in  all  my  pastoral  life,  in  public, 
in  society,  in  private,  in  the  Church,  in  the  home, 
everywhere  and  always,  not  as  your  oracle,  not  as 
your  spiritual  chief,  not  as  your  lecturer,  not  as  your 
speculative  philosopher,  but  as  your  fellow-servant, 
who  has  come  to  bring  you  a  message  from  One 
who  is  absolute  for  me,  and  absolute  for  you." 

It  is  an  ideal  of  the  pastoral  spirit  which  is  un- 
speakably searching,  certainly  as  applied  to  the 
preacher's  own  heart ;  and  to  the  end  of  our  chapter 
we  shall  need  to  cry :  "Enter  not  into  judgment  with 
Thy  servant."    But  it  is  an  ideal  which  we  are  over- 


THE  ANGEL'S  VISIT. 


whelmingly  bound  to  set  before  our  eyes  and  bind 
upon  our  hearts.  And  it  is  an  ideal  which  (not  to 
our  glory),  may  be,  and  shall  be,  indefinitely  brought 
toward  realization,  as  we  welcome  into  our  abased 
spirits  the  fulness  of  the  Holy  One. 


XIII 


THE  MINISTRY  OF  THE  NEW  COVENANT 

Preached  at  an  Ordination  in  the  Cathedral,  Liverpool. 

"Who  also  hath  made  us  able  ministers  of  the  New  Cove- 
nant."— 2  Cor.  iii.  6. 

Some  words  are  necessary,  as  we  approach  the 
message  of  this  text,  by  way  of  reminder  of  its 
context  and  exposition  of  its  phrase. 

First,  the  context.  The  verse  forms  part  of  that 
wonderful  discourse  concerning  the  trials,  toils, 
strength,  and  glory,  of  Ministry  for  Christ,  which 
occupies  the  opening  chapters  of  this  great  Epistle : 
a  passage  in  which  nothing  is  said  about  the  exterior 
of  the  thing,  about  gradations  and  subordinations 
of  rank,  about  divisions  of  labor  and  of  honor; 
but  in  which  everything  is  said  about  the  sacred 
interior  of  all  true  ministration,  about  the  spiritual 
relations  of  the  minister  to  the  Lord,  and  to  the 
flock,  and  to  the  Gospel,  and  to  himself. 

Read  these  pages,  honored  brethren  in  Christ, 
about  to  be  admitted  by  the  Church,  as  "the  called 
ones  of  Jesus  Christ,"  to  His  definitely  commissioned 
service;  read  them,  and  mark  them,  and  inwardly 

201 


202     MINISTRY  OF  NEW  COVENANT. 


digest  them,  by  day  and  by  night.  If  you  want 
searching  (and  we  always  want  it),  they  will  search 
you  through  the  soul.  If  you  want  solemnizing 
and  spiritualizing,  if  you  want  to  be  lifted  out  of 
the  desert  of  a  mere  officialism  and  routine  into 
the  paradise  of  a  life  lived  and  a  work  wrought  in 
God,  they  will  shew  you  how  this  can  be.  If  you 
want  reanimation  of  soul  about  your  coming  rest, 
and  crown,  and  glory,  about  the  faithful  minister's 
blessed  prospects  in  death  and  in  eternity,  here  you 
will  hear  indeed  a  voice  from  heaven.  Lastly,  if  you 
want  a  new  definition  and  affirmation  to  you  of  your 
message,  of  your  Gospel,  of  what  you  go  out  into 
church,  and  mission-room,  and  street,  and  lane,  and 
parlor,  and  loft,  and  cellar,  to  report,  and  testify, 
and  teach,  you  will  find  it  here,  you  will  find  it  in  my 
text. 

Immediately,  the  text  is  prefaced*  by  a  confession 
of  man's  personal  incapacity  for  the  ministry  of 
Christ.  "We  are  not  sufficient  of  ourselves  to  think 
anything  as  of  ourselves,"  "to  reason  out  anything, 
as  from  ourselves."  He  does  not  mean  that  we  are 
imbeciles  in  intelligence,  that  we  are  to  abjure  the 
use  of  mind.  The  thought  is  that  we  are  wholly 
incapable  of  originating  a  Gospel,  or  of  amending 
one;  of  evolving  a  message  out  of  our  own  con- 
*  Verse  5. 


MINISTRY  OF  NEW  COVENANT.  203 


sciousness;  of  speculating  out  a  Christianity;  of 
telling  any  man  out  of  our  own  heads  how  the  ruin 
of  his  nature  is  to  be  repaired,  and  the  burthen  of 
his  guilt  to  be  lifted  off,  how  he  is  to  find  strength 
and  power  to  have  victory  over  the  devil,  the  world, 
and  self,  how  he  is  "to  glorify  God  on  earth,  and  to 
enjoy  Him  fully  for  ever."  He  means  that  we  can- 
not excogitate  answers  to  these  things,  as  we  could  in 
the  case,  for  instance,  of  many  questions  of  political 
or  of  physical  science.  We  are  by  nature  dumb  and 
blind  before  the  problems  of  salvation,  before  the 
mystery  of  guilt  and  of  spiritual  impotence.  To 
know  what  to  think  about  these  things,  and  what  to 
say,  is  far  above  our  own  reach. 

But  then  (the  Apostle  unfolds  this  also),  we  are 
not  below  the  reach  of  Him  who  can  enable  us  to 
know.  He  "hath  made  us  able."  He  hath  qualified 
us,  capacitated  us,  for  His  work.  Sovereign  in  skill 
and  power,  He  has  taken  us  from  the  dust  and  ruins 
of  the  Fall,  and  from  the  thick  darkness  of  our 
ignorance  of  Him;  has  made  us  what  He  requires 
as  His  instruments,  and  has  taught  us  what  we 
require  for  His  Message.  With  a  fiat  as  creative  as 
that  in  Genesis,  He  "hath  shined  in  our  hearts,"* 
and  revealed  to  us  the  glory  of  the  sinner's  Saviour 
and  the  saint's  Head.  He  has  quickened  us  from 
*  Chap.  iv.  6. 


204     MINISTRY  OF  NEW  COVENANT. 


the  death  of  sin  to  the  life  which  is  hid  with  Christ 
in  God.  He  has  shewn  to  us,  and  given  to  us,  His 
Son.  He  has  shewn  to  us,  and  entrusted  to  us,  His 
Gospel.*  So,  we  are  able.  We  know  our  Master, 
our  message,  and  our  strength. 

One  word,  and  one  only,  on  the  phraseology  of 
the  text.  I  have  ventured  to  read  "new  covenant" 
in  place  of  the  "new  testament"  of  the  Authorized 
Version.  It  is  not  lightly  I  do  so.  But  I  conceive 
that  the  word  Sutein),  in  every  place,  or  almost 
every  place,  of  its  occurrence  in  the  New  Testament, 
answers  better,  both  by  usage  and  by  context,  to  the 
idea  of  a  covenant  than  to  the  more  limited  idea  of 
a  testamentary  will.  So  I  render :  "He  hath  made 
us  able,  competent,  ministers  of  the  new  covenant." 

I  have  spent  some  time  in  preface.  But  in  this 
case  the  preface  is  vital  to  the  application,  and  has 
already  been  conveying  it  in  part.  For  we  have 
seen  already  something  of  the  incapacity  of  man 
to  be  a  minister;  of  his  profound  insufficiency, 
to  think  out  a  Gospel ;  aye,  and  so  to  enter 
with  his  soul  into  the  Gospel,  even  when  externally 
revealed,  as  to  teach  it  with  living  power,  till  a  grace 
which  is  altogether  from  above  has  "shined  in  his 
heart"  and  shown  to  him  Jesus  Christ.  And  we  have 
*  Chap.  iv.  7. 


MINISTRY  OF  NEW  COVENANT.  205 


seen,  in  the  example  of  the  Apostle  and  his  co- 
workers, what  that  grace  can  do.  It  can  make  the 
blind  see ;  it  can  make  the  weak  strong ;  it  can  make 
the  dead  live;  it  can  "make  us  able." 

My  brethren  in  the  ministry  of  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ,  after  the  ancient  and  holy  order  of  the 
Church  of  England,  this  is  the  first  message  of  the 
text  to  you  and  to  your  preacher :  "We  are  not 
sufficient;  but  He  hath  made  us  able."  You,  Pres- 
byters and  Deacons  just  about  to  be,  you  all  have 
to  be,  above  all  things,  this  in  your  ministration — 
ministers  of  a  message.  And  you  are  not  sufficient 
for  it.  And  He,  if  you  are  as  you  say,  hath 
made  you  able.  I  weigh  my  words  when  I  call 
you  all  "ministers  of  a  message."  I  do  not  forget 
that  the  duty  of  the  Deacon  differs  from  that  of  the 
Presbyter,  in  this  respect  among  others,  that  while 
the  Presbyter  is,  as  such,  a  commissioned  minister 
of  the  divine  Word,  the  Deacon  is  so  only  by  special 
grant.  But  in  the  broad  facts  of  actual  Church  life 
I  see  this  line  of  distinction  greatly  modified  by  in- 
exorable circumstances.  So  I  freely  address  you 
all  as  distinctively  ministers  of  the  Word,  and  bid 
you  remember  how  the  Reformed  Church  of  Eng- 
land, "from  the  first  compiling  of  her  public  liturgy" 
to  this  day,  has  put  that  Word  and  its  ministration 
in  the  full  foreground.    There  it  stands  in  her  plan 


206     MINISTRY  OF  NEW  COVENANT. 


of  worship  as  described  in  the  "Prefaces,"  and  in  the 
examples  of  preaching  presented  in  the  Homilies, 
and  in  the  whole  drift  and  burthen  of  this  Office  of 
Ordination  in  which  we  are  engaged  to-day.  You 
are  many  things  besides  ministers  of  holy  order, 
stewards  and  dispensers  of  divine  Sacraments.  Yes, 
but  still,  in  the  view  of  our  mother  Church,  expressed 
in  her  own  authentic  utterances,  such  is  the  supreme 
importance  of  your  work  about  the  Word  of  God 
that  you  are  nothing  if  not  messengers,  nothing  if 
not  witnesses  of  the  revealed  and  unaltered  Gospel 
of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  the  New  Covenant  in  His 
Name. 

And  oh,  you  are  "not  sufficient,"  brethren,  "not 
sufficient  to  think  anything,"  not  sufficient  therefore 
to  preach  anything,  "as  of  yourselves." 

Minister  of  Jesus  Christ,  are  you  setting  out  to- 
day light-heartedly  on  your  work?  Are  you  as- 
sured that  you  are  the  heir  of  all  the  ages,  confi- 
dent that  you  are  a  guide  of  the  blind,  satisfied 
perhaps  that  old  ways,  views,  and  words  have  had 
their  day,  and  that  you  and  your  generation,  by  a 
few  bold  strokes  of  accommodation,  by  the  casting 
overboard  of  a  little  more  of  the  supernatural,  by  a 
little  more  explanation-away  of  such  stubborn  words 
as  "sin,"  and  "guilt,"  and  "law,"  and  "propitiation," 
and  "new  heart,"  by  a  somewhat  extended  excursion 


MINISTRY  OF  NEW  COVENANT.  207 


on  the  "down-grade"  of  religious  liberalism,  will 
bring  man  and  Christianity  to  terms?  Or  are  you 
trusting  to  do  your  clerical  work,  in  its  philanthropic 
aspects,  so  well,  and  vigorously,  and  sympathetically, 
that  there  will  be  little  need  for  doctrines,  broad 
or  narrow,  while  you  educate,  amuse,  and  befriend 
your  people  into  Christian  virtue?  Recur  in  time 
to  the  Apostle's  words,  in  view  of  the  work,  as  he 
at  least  understood  it :  "Not  that  we  are  sufficient 
of  ourselves  to  think  anything  as  from  ourselves ; 
but  our  sufficiency  is  of  God."  You  have  to  deal  for 
God  with  man — fallen,  rebel,  sinful  man,  "dead  in 
trespasses  and  sins."  How  to  repair  that  ruin  is  a 
secret  known  to  God  alone.  As  regards  the  answer 
to  that  problem,  you  must  not,  you  dare  not,  deviate 
from  His  judgment  in  your  estimate,  from  His  reve- 
lation in  your  scheme,  from  his  Word  in  your  mes- 
sage. The  modern  world  can,  if  it  will,  bandy  about 
the  mysteries  of  the  faith  from  magazine  to  maga- 
zine, between  installments  of  serial  fiction.  The 
Apostle,  who  had  seen  Jesus  Christ,  said,  "We  are 
not  sufficient  to  think  anything  as  from  ourselves; 
our  sufficiency  is  of  God." 

Happy  is  the  intending  minister  of  Christ  who  in 
j  this  respect  has  lost  confidence  in  himself.  Blessed 
is  the  man  that  thus  "fcarcth  ahuays."    Bright  are 
the  ministerial  prospects  of  him  who  has  come  to 


208     MINISTRY  OF  NEW  COVENANT. 


that  most  reasonable  of  conclusions,  that  his  message 
must  be  humbly  learnt  at  the  feet  of  the  Lord  and 
His  Apostles,  and  must  be  lovingly  and  faithfully 
delivered  in  the  presence  and  in  the  peace  of  his 
Master — as  message,  not  as  speculation,  nor  as  rhap- 
sody ;  as  message  first,  whatever  else  it  be. 

Are  you,  in  the  Christian  poet's  words,  thus 
"confident  in  self-despair"  ?  Then  you  are  getting 
hold  of  your  "sufficiency."  You  are  learning  the  in- 
finity of  your  need,  and  that  is  the  straight  way  to 
getting  into  contact  with  the  infinity  of  the  Lord's 
supply. 

Let  us  resolve  boldly  thus  to  "fear  always."  It  is 
the  sort  of  fear  that  does  not  shrink,  but  clings.  It 
does  not  bury  "that  one  talent  which  is  death  to 
hide,"  but  it  takes  its  Owner's  advice  every  day  how 
to  lay  it  out.  It  fears  because  of  adoring  love.  It 
fears  not  lest  it  should  be  true  to  Him.  It  cannot 
bear  not  to  glorify  His  beloved,  His  blessed  Name. 

Fear  always  thus.  It  will  drive  you  to  trust 
always.  It  will  keep  you  close  to  the  fountain-head 
of  power  and  peace.  It  will  constrain  you  to  walk 
with  God.  And  the  ministry  which  has  not  at  the 
back  of  it  a  walk  with  God  may  have  a  name,  may 
have  a  fame,  to  live,  yet  it  is  dead. 

But  of  what  in  particular  does  the  Apostle  say  that 
we  are  "made  able"  to  be  ministers?    "Able  minis- 


MINISTRY  OF  NEW  COVENANT.  209 


ter  of  the  new  covanant;  not  of  the  letter,  but  of 
the  Spirit ;  for  the  letter  killeth,  but  the  Spirit  giveth 
life."  You  consult  the  context  about  the  meaning  of 
this  "letter"  and  this  "Spirit" ;  and  you  find  that  the 
letter  means  the  holy  Law,  immovable,  graven  in  the 
rock  for  ever,  and  divinely  fatal  to  the  sinner's  hopes 
if  he  would  use  it  as  his  title  to  life;  and  you  find 
that  the  Spirit  means  the  Holy  Spirit,  here  named 
as  the  crowning  and  concentrating  blessing  of  the 
Gospel  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  "We  preach  not," 
he  means,  "as  our  distinctive  message,  the  sacred, 
the  divine  anathema ;  we  preach  Him  who  has  taken 
it  on  His  own  immaculate  head,  and,  in  the  infinite 
merit  of  that  sacrifice,  now  sheds  into  awakened 
man's  inmost  being  the  Holy  Ghost,  the  Lord,  the 
Life-Giver,  to  make  the  new  heart,  to  teach  the 
art  and  practice  of  new  and  saving  trust,  to  sus- 
tain in  the  new  life,  to  prompt  the  new  song,  to 
unfold  the  new  Covenant,  to  make  all  things  new 
from  the  inmost  to  the  outmost  of  the  man." 

Now  observe — all  this  is  called  the  new  covenant 
(tj  Katv^j  huae^K-q) .  I  beg  you  to  attend  to  that  word. 
It  is  out  of  the  fashion  of  current  religious  thought ; 
not  often  does  the  modern  preacher  discourse  upon 
the  Covenant.  The  word  is  strict  and  definite ;  and 
too  often  now  the  drift  even  of  evangelistic  religion 
is  toward  the  vague,  the  fluid,  and  the  lax.  But 


2io     MINISTRY  OF  NEW  COVENANT. 


there  stands  the  word  in  the  Book  of  God,  large  and 
prominent.  And  as  I  pause  and  ponder  it,  lo!  out 
of  its  rugged  strictness  and  severity  begin  to  spring 
ideas  of  life,  and  love,  and  glory.  I  begin  to  see  in 
it  precious  and  splendid  intimations  of  a  plan,  a 
compact,  an  agreement,  for  the  blessing  of  believing 
man,  "ordered  in  all  things  and  sure,"  deeds  and 
seals  valid  for  ever  in  the  eternal  Court,  oaths  and 
"promises  to  which  the  ancient  hills  are  fleeting  and 
unsubstantial  things.  I  draw  nearer,  and  I  study 
deeper,  and  I  see  in  this  New  Covenant  a  thing  whose 
settlement  and  security  lie  between  the  Father 
and  the  Son.  All  its  blessings  are  lodged  in  the 
incarnate,  sacrificed,  and  risen  Christ,  its  Mediator 
and  Surety,  lodged  in  Him  for  me,  because  for 
all  who  come  to  God  by  Him.  His  covenanted 
joys  and  treasures  are  mine  in  Him,  and,  because 
covenanted,  sure  and  certain;  no  fortuitous  largess, 
so  to  speak,  of  a  precarious  bounty,  but  possessions 
ready  sealed,  and  delivered  over  to  the  entitled 
applicant  with  the  majestic  precision  of  the  long- 
matured  determinations  and  vast  securities  of  celes- 
tial law.  I  ponder  the  word,  I  ponder  the  thing, 
of  which  I  am  enabled  to  be  the  minister;  and  it 
glows  within  my  own  soul  as  a  living  treasure 
for  my  own  profoundest  needs.  It  is  indeed  a  word 
of  rock,  but  its  material  is  the  "Rock  of  ages,  cleft 


MINISTRY  OF  NEW  COVENANT.  211 


for  me" ;  cleft  for  my  hiding-place,*  whence  I  may- 
watch  His  goodness,  and  where  the  outskirts  of  His 
glory  may  pass  before  me ;  cleft  for  the  issuing  into 
me  of  the  eternal  waters  of  the  overflowing  Spirit, 
the  Spirit  of  the  Son  of  God,  "which  they  that 
believe  in  Him  do  receive."! 

"The  new  covenant."  Let  us  be  very  definite 
about  it,  for  so  the  Scriptures  are.  Do  you  want  a 
locus  classicns  upon  the  subject?  You  have  it, 
amongst  other  places,  in  Heb.  x.  16,  17 :  "This  is  the 
covenant  that  I  will  make  with  them" — with  them 
that  are  sanctified,  separated  to  God,  by  the  one 
Offering  of  Calvary :  "I  will  put  My  laws  into  their 
hearts,  and  in  their  minds  will  I  write  them;  and 
their  sins  and  iniquities  will  I  remember  no  more." 
And  as  we  turn  to  the  fontal  passage  in  Jeremiah 
(xxxi.  33,  34),  we  find,  as  you  know,  that  the  order 
of  thought  reverses  that  of  mention.  First,  blessed 
be  God,  is  the  present  and  abundant  pardon,  the 
sure  and  covenanted  acceptance,  for  the  great 
Mediator's  solitary  sake.  Then,  as  a  gift  equally  of 
sovereign  grace,  and  to  be  received  with  equal 
simplicity  in  Him,  is  the  writing  of  the  laws — laws 
as  much  as  ever,  strong  and  binding  as  on  the  tablets 
of  Sinai,  but  written  now  upon  the  heart,  the  thought, 
*  Exod.  xxxiv.  19-23.  t  John  vii.  39. 


212     MINISTRY  OF  NEW  COVENANT. 


the  understanding,  love,  and  will,  of  God's  new- 
born Israelite. 

Dear  brethren  in  the  Lord,  will  you  accept  and 
put  into  use  what  in  Jesus  Christ  is  yours — ability, 
full  equipment,  to  be  the  living  ministers  of  such 
a  Covenant?  Will  you  make  plain  to  men's  thoughts 
its  glories,  its  divine  origination,  its  lodgment  in 
Christ,  its  fulness  and  presentness  of  blessing?  Will 
you  plead  with  men  to  be  reconciled  on  covenant 
terms  with  God?  Will  you  beguile  them,  will  you 
adjure  them,  to  come  "into  the  bond  of  the  cove- 
nant," holding  up  before  them  the  marvel  of  the 
work  wrought  and  the  price  paid  to  make  it  valid, 
preaching  it  as  "the  New  Covenant  in  the  Lord's 
blood,  shed  for  the  remission  of  sins"?*  Will  you 
dilate  with  the  emphasis,  and  interest,  and  unstudied 
skill  of  the  messenger  who  is  in  love  with  his 
message,  because  it  is  his  own  life  and  joy,  upon  the 
magnificent  doublcncss  of  this  Covenant?  Will  you 
say  strong  things,  strong  as  the  Word  of  God,  to 
the  true  penitent,  about  a  covenanted  acceptance, 
large,  unreserved,  secure,  and  present :  "Their  sins 
and  their  iniquities  will  I  remember  no  more"? 
Will  you  preach  heart-searchingly  about  sin  and  the 
law,  and  yet,  and  then,  preach  also  justification  by 

*  See  Matt.  xxvi.  28,  Luke  xxii.  20. 


MINISTRY  OF  NEW  COVENANT.  213 


faith,  peace  now  with  God  through  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ: 

"Thy  tears,  not  mine,  O  Christ, 

Have  wept  my  guilt  away" ; 
"Thy  Cross,  not  mine,  O  Christ, 

Has  borne  the  awful  load"? 

And  then  will  you  preach  that  other  limb  of  the 
Covenant  with  equal  insight,  and  decision,  and 
thanksgiving:  "I  will  put  My  laws  into  their 
hearts,  and  write  them  in  their  minds"  ?  Will  you 
make  men  sure  that  in  the  Mediator  are  treasured 
both  pardon  and  celestial  holiness ;  that  in  the  Head 
is  lodged  for  the  members  life,  and  more  abundant 
life;  that  from  Him,  under  covenant  security  and 
seal,  we  are  to  receive — not  generate,  but  receive — 
in  humblest  reliance  upon  Him,  that  new  nature,  that 
new  heart,  wrought  by  the  Spirit  in  the  regenerate 
man,  the  heart  which  "loveth  righteousness  and  hat- 
eth  wickedness,"  over  which  sin  hath  no  more  do- 
minion, which  walketh  at  liberty,  keeping  His  com- 
mandments? Will  you  make  it  plain  that  under  this 
august  Covenant  there  is  guaranteed  to  faith  the 
power  of  the  indwelling  and  conquering  Spirit,  by 
whom  Christ  dwells  within,  as  truly  as  there  is  guar- 
anteed to  faith  the  blissful  acceptance  of  the  guilty 
by  reason  of  the  once-offered  Blood?  Will  you 
evermore  enforce  on  them,  and  on  yourselves,  the  in- 


2i4     MINISTRY  OF  NEW  COVENANT. 


finite  spirituality  of  the  law,  and  the  perpetual  need 
of  the  humblest  confession  of  your  sins?  But  will 
you  also,  and  meanwhile,  make  it  largely  and  lov- 
ingly plain  to  them  that  Jesus  Christ,  through  His 
Spirit,  can  peacefully  empower  the  heart,  by  His 
own  saving  virtue,  to  submit  itself  evermore  beneath 
His  hands,  that  He  may  write  that  law  upon  it, 
while  the  heart  sings  with  solemn  joy :  "Thy  com- 
mandments are  not  grievous";  and  that  all  this  is 
under  covenant,  oath,  and  seal,  and  secured  for  you 
in  the  Mediator's  hand? 

I  am  sure  these  views  of  the  Covenant  are  "as 
the  oracles  of  God."  I  solemnly  call  on  you  to 
see  if  they  are  not,  and,  if  they  are,  to  resolve 
that  your  ministry  shall  strike  no  lower  key,  no 
weaker  melody,  nor  less  perfect  harmony.  Ponder 
this  great  thing  in  your  studies,  on  your  knees,  over 
your  Bibles,  and  in  your  work  for  men.  Unfold 
it,  as  the  basis  of  all  the  variety  of  incidental  topics, 
in  the  sacred  pulpit.  And  when  you  stand  at  the 
Master's  Table,  make  the  Covenant  indeed  the  theme 
of  your  adoring  thanks,  and  the  couch  of  your  happy 
rest.  Ponder  the  holy  Cup  in  the  light  of  cove- 
nant truth.  Drink  it,  and  give  it,  with  that  truth 
glowing  in  your  own  heart :  "This  is  My  blood 
of  the  New  Covenant";  "This  cup  is  the  New 
Covenant  in  My  blood."    He  that  knows  the  Cove- 


MINISTRY  OF  NEW  COVENANT.  215 


nant,  and  clasps  it,  and  ministers  it,  will  indeed 
venerate  and  love  its  Seal. 

Go  forth,  in  the  name  of  the  Son  of  God,  to  your 
ministry  of  this  "everlasting  Covenant"  made  with 
Him  for  every  one  that  believeth.  Advance  to  your 
whole  work  with  all  your  aims  and  thoughts  simpli- 
fied into  this ;  that  you  are  set,  by  grace,  upon  glori- 
fying God  in  this  ministry  of  the  Covenant.  Let 
me  leave  that  word  last  upon  your  souls,  that  deep, 
holy,  immortal  aim,  to  glorify  God.  "Supernatural 
is  the  desire  to  glorify  God,"  wrote  that  great  saint, 
Henry  Venn  the  elder,  a  century  ago;  "it  is  the 
bud  and  the  blossom  which  brings  forth  all  the  fruit 
the  Church  of  God  bears."*  The  Lord  lead  you 
forth  in  peace  thus  to  do  His  will,  in  His  rest,  and 
in  His  strength,  and  for  His  sake,  till  you  lie  down 
to  die  into  His  presence,  taking  your  Master's  words, 
in  your  humble  measure,  upon  your  failing  lips: 
"I  have  glorified  Thee  upon  the  earth;  I  have  fin- 
ished the  work  which  Thou  gavest  me  to  do." 

*  Memoir,  p.  14. 


XIV. 


THE  LORD'S  BROTHER:  THE  SON  OF  GOD 

Preached  on  Trinity  Sunday  in  St.  Catharine's  College  Chapel, 
Cambridge 

"I  saw  James,  the  Lord's  brother.  ...  It  pleased  God 
...   .    .    to  reveal  His  Son  in  me." — Gal.  i.  19,  15,  16. 

This  is  the  Sunday  of  the  Holy  Trinity.  The 
seasons  of  the  Church  and  their  teaching  have  led 
us,  since  Advent,  through  "the  days  of  the  flesh"  of 
the  Lord  Jesus,  and  up  to  His  Ascent  to  heaven, 
and  then  on  to  the  Descent  of  the  Holy  Ghost  upon 
His  Church.  To-day  they  culminate  in  this  supreme 
and  eternal  truth.  We  are  permitted,  as  it  were,  to 
look  through  that  door  in  heaven  which  was  opened 
to  St.  John  in  Patmos,  and  to  see  the  Throne  itself, 
and  the  living  Mystery  of  infinite  while  personal 
Being  which  shines  and  reigns  upon  it.  In  oneness 
of  Nature,  in  threeness  of  eternal  inner  Relation, 
behold  our  God!  Lo!  Father,  Son,  and  Spirit; 
bright  Depth  of  reciprocal  and  almighty  internal 
love;  immeasurable  Fountain  of  that  wonderful  out- 
flow, redeeming  love ;  the  love  that  loved  the  world ; 
"the  love  of  God,  which  is  in  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord." 

216 


LORD'S  BROTHER:  SON  OF  GOD.  217 


I  make  no  attempt  this  morning  to  discourse  in 
order  upon  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity.  But  I  take 
occasion  from  the  day  to  set  before  you  some 
thoughts  akin  to  the  mighty  Theme,  and  meanwhile 
as  closely  as  possible  akin  to  our  hearts  and  lives. 
After  all,  the  central  splendor  of  the  truth  of  the 
Trinity,  for  us  men  and  our  salvation,  is  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ,  God  and  Man,  Man  and  God.  In  Him 
we  know  the  Father.  From  Him  we  have  the  Spirit. 
Him  the  Father  gives  us  as  His  supreme  Gift.  Him 
the  Spirit  glorifies  to  our  hearts  as  His  supreme 
Theme.  He  is  at  once  our  Door  into  the  heaven  of 
the  throne,  and  the  visible  Form  upon  that  throne 
itself,  in  whom  our  God  is  seen. 

Let  us  speak  a  little,  then,  of  Jesus  Christ — Son 
of  Man,  therefore  Man ;  Son  of  God,  therefore  God. 

i.  "I  saw  James,  the  Lord's  brother."  So  St. 
Paul  writes  in  the  first  verse  of  my  text.  It  is  a 
sentence  of  the  simplest  and  most  prosaic  matter  of 
fact.  Looking  back  over  twenty  years  or  so  from 
the  date  of  his  writing,  he  recalls  a  certain  visit  to 
Jerusalem.  It  was  a  visit  to  Peter,  and  it  lasted  just 
a  fortnight.  As  it  happened,  he  did  not  meet  the 
other  Apostles  on  that  occasion;  John  and  the  rest 
chanced  to  be  out  of  the  way.    Only,  he  did  see 


218    LORD'S  BROTHER:  SON  OF  GOD. 


James,  the  Lord's  brother.  That  is  all;  the  subject 
drops  at  once. 

What  a  simple  note,  as  from  a  diary!  There  is 
no  mystery  here,  nothing  transcendental.  It  is  a 
mention  as  natural  as  if  he  had  said,  "I  saw  Timo- 
theus  on  such  an  occasion,"  or,  "I  saw  Sergius 
Paulus."  But  think  for  a  moment  what  it  suggests; 
reflect  upon  its  witness  to  the  recency  and  to  the 
absolute  reality  of  the  human  biography  of  Jesus 
Christ.  No  matter  now  what  exactly  was  the 
"brotherhood"  between  James  and  the  Lord ;  it  was 
anywise  some  human  connection,  such  as  might  have 
subsisted  equally  well  between  some  other  two 
Palestinian  men.  As  such,  this  little  commonplace 
allusion  to  an  incident  of  intercourse  carries  us  right 
up,  beyond  all  possible  myth  or  legend,  to  the  very 
birth  of  Christianity.  Here  is  a  man  recalling  his 
interview  with  another  man  at  a  time  which  was 
much  nearer  then  than  the  date  of  my  degree  is  to 
me  now,  or  the  d^te  of  my  ordination — events  which, 
however,  are  as  vividly  present  to  me  as  many  an  oc- 
currence of  this  year.  And  this  man  whom  he  re- 
calls had  shared  a  home  with  Jesus,  had  taken  his 
meals  with  Him,  had  very  likely  sat  in  the  school 
with  Him,  and  worked  with  Him  in  the  shop.  He 
would  remember  very  well  indeed  His  look,  His 
voice,  His  manner,  just  as  I  remember  "the  old 


LORD'S  BROTHER:  SON  OF  GOD.  219 


familiar  faces"  of  my  father's  home,  or  of  my  college 
friendships. 

Here,  then,  is  the  simplest  possible  fact  for  our 
contemplation,  from  one  side.  A  letter-writer, 
whose  letter  betokens  him  a  man  of  sane,  vigorous, 
and  eminently  practical  character,  recalls  visits  and 
conversations  which  brought  him  across  a  friend 
who  happened  to  have  been,  not  long  before,  a  mem- 
ber of  a  certain  home-circle  in  Northern  Palestine. 
It  is  a  common  fact,  artlessly  told.  But  then,  the 
wonder  of  it  from  another  side  is  just  this,  that  it  is 
fact.  That  home-circle  of  Galilean  Nazareth  was  a 
then  recent  fact.  And  it  embraced  among  other 
members,  two  men,  called  "brothers"  all  around  the 
town.  One  was  James ;  the  other  was — "the  Lord !" 
James  was  "the  Lord's"  brother. 

ii.  This  designation  arrests  us.  "The  Lord."  It 
is  a  term  reverent  and  religious.  What  does  it 
connote  about  Him  who,  if  James  was  His  brother, 
was  also,  and  in  the  same  sense,  the  Brother  of 
James?  Let  this  epistle  to  Galatia  answer  the  ques- 
tion. Remember,  it  is  a  letter  which,  as  I  have  just 
said,  bespeaks  the  writer  a  man  not  only  of  keen  and 
critical  understanding,  but  of  a  large  and  balanced 
wisdom.  It  is  a  document  which  carries  on  its  face, 
in  its  unselfish  jealousy  for  all  that  is  kind,  true,  and 
mutually  just  and  considerate,  one  of  the  surest 


220    LORD'S  BROTHER:  SON  OF  GOD. 


guarantees  we  can  possibly  have  that  it  is  free  from 
emotional  delusion.  And  its  writer,  remember,  this 
friend  of  "James,  the  Lord's  brother,"  stands  not 
many  years  from  the  time  when  he  first  met  James ; 
as  little  as  James  was  a  myth  to  him,  so  little  was 
James'  Brother.  But  James'  Brother  was  neverthe- 
less to  him  "the  Lord/'  in  a  sense  upon  which  my 
other  text,  and  with  it  the  rest  of  the  Epistle,  throws 
the  light  of  eternity  itself.  Think  of  such  words  as 
the  following  and  imagine  them  said  now  of  one 
whose  brother  you  had  known  at  school,  or  I  had 
known  at  College:  "It  pleased  God  to  reveal  His 
Son  in  me" ;  "Paul,  an  Apostle,  not  by  man,  but  by 
Jesus  Christ,  and  God  the  Father,  who  raised  Him 
from  the  dead" ;  "Our  Lord,  who  gave  Himself  for 
us,  that  He  might  redeem  us" ;  "I  am  crucified  with 
Christ;  Christ  liveth  in  me ;  I  live  by  faith  in  the  Son 
of  God,  who  loved  me  and  gave  Himself  for  me"; 
"Christ  hath  redeemed  us  from  the  curse  of  the  law, 
being  made  a  curse  for  us";  "Ye  are  all  one  in 
Christ";  "God  sent  forth  His  Son;  God  hath  sent 
forth  the  Spirit  of  His  Son  into  your  hearts,  crying 
Abba,  Father";  "God  forbid  that  I  should  glory, 
save  in  the  Cross  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ";  "In 
Christ  Jesus  nothing  availeth  but  a  new  creation" ; 
"The  grace  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  be  with  your 
spirit.  Amen." 


LORD'S  BROTHER:  SON  OF  GOD.  221 


Such,  to  the  view  of  James'  friend,  was  James' 
Brother.  To  Paul,  this  wonderful  Being,  who  was 
practically  his  contemporary  in  human  life,  was, 
on  the  other  hand,  Lord,  Redeemer,  immeasurably 
more  than  man,  Son  of  the  Eternal,  Object  of  saving 
faith,  mysterious  Inhabitant  of  the  heart.  To  reveal 
fully  His  glories  to  the  soul,  God  the  Father  must 
interpose.*  Once  seen,  once  known,  He  is  all  in  all 
for  the  being  who  has  found  Him.  Into  Him  a 
Paul,  with  all  his  vast  wealth  of  thought  and  will, 
sinks,  as  it  were,  delightfully  submerged  and  lost; 
"I  live,  yet  not  I;  Christ  liveth  in  me."f  He  is  not 
called  God  in  set  terms  indeed.  But  can  all  this 
language  mean  less  than  Deity?  Either  James' 
Brother  is  also  God  made  Man,  or  Paul's  language 
about  Him  is  high  treason  against  the  Almighty. 
For  it  makes  out  the  Brother  of  James  to  be  man's 
absolute  Master  and  Possessor,  man's  inmost  Secret 
of  eternal  life,  man's  ultimate  and  adequate  Object 
of  saving  trust,  man's  Grace-Giver,  man's  all-satisfy- 
ing joy  and  glory. 

James'  Brother;  Son  of  God! 

I  know  not  whether  I  carry  you  with  me,  but  to 
my  own  soul,  I  must  avow,  this  double  utterance  of 
the  Galatian  Letter,  written  down  within  thirty  years 
*Gal.  i.  15.  tGal.  ii.  20. 


222    LORD'S  BROTHER:  SON  OF  GOD. 


of  the  Crucifixion,  speaks  with  a  quite  peculiar  power 
about  alike  the  solidity  and  the  glory  of  the  Chris- 
tian's faith.  It  takes  me  up  at  one  step  to  the  very 
first  days  of  young  Christianity,  and  there  it  shows 
me  with  one  hand  a  rock-surface  of  personal  inci- 
dents, seen  in  the  broadest  daylight  of  human  life. 
With  the  other  hand  it  shows,  me,  set  upon  that  plat- 
form, moving  and  acting  upon  it,  the  splendor  of 
a  certainty  at  once  primeval,  sober,  and  divine,  that 
the  Jesus  of  human  history  is  also  the  Lord  of  the 
upper  heavens,  the  mysterious  Sacrifice  for  my  sins, 
the  Life  of  my  life,  the  Master  of  my  will,  "strength 
of  my  heart,  and  my  portion  for  ever." 

My  brethren,  when  I  cast  about  for  a  theme  on 
which  to  address  you  in  this  sacred  place,  on  this 
my  first  occasion  of  privilege  as  a  preacher  of  God's 
Word  in  our  College,  it  seemed  to  me  that  of  all 
possible  choices  it  must  be  best  to  choose  the  supreme 
Theme,  Jesus  Christ.  So  we  have  sought  to  consider 
Him,  simply  Him,  in  the  mystery,  fact,  and  glory 
of  what  He  is. 

He  has  passed  before  us  as  Man,  our  elder 
Brother,  Partner  of  man's  life,  Denizen  of  man's 
home,  cognizant  of  our  whole  human  circumstances, 
"able  to  be  touched  with  the  feeling  of  our  infirmi- 
ties." James'  Brother  knows  all  about  human  condi- 


LORD'S  BROTHER:  SON  OF  GOD.  223 


tions,  "in  all  points  once  tested  like  as  we  are,  yet 
without  sin";  yes,  blessed  be  His  Name!  "without 
sin";  so  that  to  His  perfect  sympathy  is  for  ever 
joined  the  omnipotence  to  help  which,  without  moral 
perfectness,  could  not  be.  He  has  passed  and  shone 
before  us,  on  the  other  hand,  as  the  King  of  Glory, 
the  everlasting  Son  of  the  Father,  the  sinner's  Par- 
don, the  disciple's  Life  and  Strength  and  Purity 
and  blessed  Hope  beyond. 

Behold  the  Man  !  Behold  the  Lord  !  "We  would 
see  Jesus" — and  we  may.  We  would  believe  on  Him 
to  life  eternal — and  we  may.  Such  a  Redeemer,  in 
the  infinite  nearness  of  His  Manhood,  in  the  infinite 
fulness  of  His  Deity,  comes  to  meet  our  asking  with 
open  and  everlasting  arms.  Received,  believed, 
obeyed,  He  gladdens  with  summer  sunshine  every 
corner  of  our  days.  He  cleanses  our  very  thoughts 
— bright  miracle! — by  His  presence  in  the  midst 
of  them.  He  ennobles  our  every  faculty,  body  and 
mind,  by  using  it  for  His  will.  And  at  the  end — He 
will  not  let  us  "see  death";  "we  shall  see  Him,  as 
He  is." 


XV 


LIVING  STONES 

Preached  in  St.  Catharine's  College  Chapel,  Cambridge. 
"Ye,  also  as  living  stones." — i  Pet.  ii.  5. 

We  owe  to  this  paragraph  of  St.  Peter's  a  designa- 
tion of  our  Lord  priceless  in  its  significance  and 
power.  Here,  and  here  only,  in  Holy  Scripture,  in 
the  sentence  just  before  the  text,  He  is  called  the 
Living  Stone.  Repeatedly  elsewhere,  both  in  the 
Old  Testament  and  in  the  New,  we  read  of  Him  as 
the  Stone,  the  Rock,  Rock  of  Ages,  Stone  of  the 
Corner — Angular e  Fundamentum.  And  we  have  in- 
deed abundant  Scriptures  where  He  appears  in  all 
the  glory  and  in  all  the  power  of  Life.  "I  am  He 
that  liveth"  6  Zfo:  nay,  "I  am  the  Life."*  But 
here  only  do  the  two  truths  meet  in  one  magnificent 
witness  to  His  worth  and  glory;  only  here  is  He 
named  "the  Living  Stone." 

It  is  a  pregnant  phrase,  when  the  mind  attends  to 
it  and  takes  it  in.    Christ  is  the  Stone.    The  word 
speaks  to  us  of  all  that  is  solid,  massive,  steadfast, 
strong.    It  suggests  at  once  ideas  of  immovable 
*Rev.  i.  18;  John  xL  25. 
224 


LIVING  STONES. 


225 


principle  and  ever-persistent  purpose,  and  of  capacity 
at  once  to  resist  and  to  sustain.  We  read  in  it  how 
our  Master  is  "the  same  yesterday  and  to-day  and 
for  ever,"*  in  a  fixity  which  the  cliffs  and  crags  may 
picture,  but  to  which  all  the  while  they  are  but  as 
fleeting  shadows,  as  unsubstantial  dreams,  placed 
beside  Him  who  is  "this  same  Jesus"  t  for  ever  and 
for  evermore. 

But  then,  besides,  Christ  is  the  Living  Stone. 
Taken  by  itself,  the  rock-metaphor  gives  us  all  we 
want  of  certainty  and  strength ;  but  there  is  nothing 
in  it  of  itself  to  warm  the  thought  and  to  move  the 
soul  to  a  personal  regard.  But  behold!  He  is  the 
Living  Stone ;  He  is  Strength  instinct  with  glowing 
Life.  This  foundation,  this  bulwark,  this  massy 
tower,  "foursquare  to  opposition" — look  at  it  again; 
it  is  not  it,  but  He.  The  Rock  has  voice,  and  eyes, 
and  arms,  and  heart.  He  lives,  all  over  and  all 
through ;  and  it  is  with  a  life  which  pours  itself  out 
in  thought  and  sympathy  and  help  and  love,  to 
the  refugee  upon  the  Rock. 

So  speaks  the  Apostle,  so  by  the  Apostle  speaks 
the  Holy  Ghost,  of  this  double  glory  of  Jesus  Christ 
our  Lord.  But  he  has  more  to  say,  and  of  the  same 
kind.  The  Living  Stone  is  One.  But  there  are 
many  living  stones.  The  Son  of  God  is  Only-Be- 
*Heb.  xiii.  8.  f  Acts  i.  IL 


226 


LIVING  STONES. 


gotten.  But  there  are  many  sons  of  God.  Has 
man,  in  all  his  weakness  and  in  all  his  inner  spiritual 
death,  touched  Christ?  Then  the  Stone  gives  man 
His  strength ;  the  Life  gives  man  His  life.  And  the 
result  is  a  living  stone.  And  such  living  stones  come 
to  be  many;  and  a  Hand,  mighty  to  construct  as 
well  as  mighty  to  save,  takes  them,  and  builds  with 
them.  They  come  together,  in  their  strength  and  in 
their  life;  and  the  strength  is  multiplied,  and  the 
life  flows  with  stronger  and  fuller  pulses,  and  lo! 
there  results  (to  use  St.  Peter's  words  here),  "a 
spiritual  household,  an  holy  priesthood,"  "offering 
to  God  by  Jesus  Christ"  the  mighty  sacrifice  of  a 
surrender  and  a  service  free,  conscious,  individual 
and  magnificently  fraternal  and  combined. 

This  is  a  rich  and  animating  ideal,  is  it  not  ?  And, 
like  all  true  ideals,  it  is  given  to  us,  not  for  contem- 
plation only,  but  to  be  realized,  nearer  and  ever 
nearer  to  its  perfect  truth.  Look  at  it,  with  purposes 
as  practical  as  possible,  from  both  its  sides.  Here 
is  the  Christian  man  as  the  living  stone.  Here  is  the 
Christian  company  as  the  structure  of  such  living 
stones.  The  stone  precedes  the  structure  in  the 
order  of  thought;  so  let  us  take  the  stone  first,  the 
living  stone,  the  Christian  man.  What  is  he  to  be? 
What  through  Christ  can  he  be?  I  emphasize  that 
word,  What  can  he  be  ?    For  St.  Peter,  obviously,  is 


LIVING  STONES. 


227 


writing  about  a  thing  possible  and  actual :  "You  are 
living  stones ;  you  are  being  builded  up  as  such."  It 
was  a  fact  of  human  experience  for  these  disciples 
of  the  Asiatic  Missions,  these  people  recently  sunk 
and  sodden  in  Levantine  languor  and  vice,  these  help- 
less slaves  of  pagan  owners,  as  many  of  them  were 
besides.  They  had  actually  become  to  be  living 
stones.  Then  we  in  Cambridge,  in  England,  in 
Christendom  to-day  can  really  become  the  same.  We 
can,  in  Christ,  every  one  of  us  be  this,  a  living  stone. 

i.  "A  stone,"  a  rock.  Take  the  noun  first.  We 
can,  out  of  whatever  weakness,  be  made  strong  in 
God.  Be  our  slightness  and  vacillation  of  character 
what  it  may,  it  is  as  possible  for  us  as  for  St.  Peter's 
converts  to  become  stones.  We  can  be  solid,  with  a 
quiet  purpose  for  right  which  "reverbs  no  hollow- 
ness."  We  can  be  stable,  with  a  persistency  of  dutiful 
conduct  which  is  utterly  different,  different  as  clay 
from  dark,  from  the  attitude  of  the  Pharisee,  but 
which  stays  and  lasts  in  the  march  of  life,  and  is  the 
same.  You  know  where  to  find  the  man,  you  can 
count  on  him,  you  can  be  sure  of  him.  He  is  steady 
as  a  rock  himself,  to  resist  and  to  shame  temptation, 
and  equally  steady,  if  need  be,  to  be  leaned  upon 
with  strong  reliance  by  a  friend  in  moral  danger. 
He  can  stand  alone.  He  is  not  the  poor  slave  of 
drifts  and  fashions  of  opinion  and  practice.  Con- 


228 


LIVING  STONES. 


science  and  will  have  somehow  coalesced  within  him, 
and  the  compound  is  a  rock  of  quiet  character  which 
by  no  means  slights  popularity,  but  is  never  ruled 
by  it  for  an  hour. 

ii.  Then  take  the  adjective.  He  is  "a  living 
stone."  He  is  not  too  good  (if  there  be  such  a  good- 
ness at  all)  to  be  profoundly  alive  with  the  life  of 
human  sympathy,  human  insight,  human  affections, 
the  life  which  unobtrusively  cares  for  and  is  at  the 
service  of  the  lives  around  him.  The  living  stone  is 
no  such  unhappy  being  that  he  can  say,  that  he  can 
think,  of  others:  "I  am  holier  than  thou."  At  his 
Lord's  feet,  in  his  Lord's  holy  heart,  he  has  found 
an  absolute  corrective  to  such  moral  falsehood.  Out 
of  nature  he  has  been  taken  into  grace.  But  then 
by  grace  he  has  been  led,  if  I  may  put  it  so,  back  into 
a  purified  nature;  he  is  natural,  with  a  quick  readi- 
ness for  every  wholesome  and  honest  sympathy ;  im- 
movable in  principle,  unchangeable  in  every  duty  of 
the  friend. 

Such  is  the  Christian  as  a  living  stone;  a  noble 
ideal,  and,  let  me  repeat  it  over  again,  an  ideal 
meant  to  be  realized,  to  be  incarnated,  in  each  and 
every  one  of  ourselves.  This  man  has  been;  this 
man  can  be. 

As  I  speak  of  it,  a  beloved  and  beautiful  memory 
rises  before  me — a  friend  of  my  early  undergraduate 


LIVING  STONES. 


229 


days,  called  to  die  before  his  own  degree,  but  first 
called  to  live,  as  a  living  stone.  Before  he  entered 
Trinity  College  he  had  passed  through  a  military 
academy,  a  place  which  at  that  time  was  a  scene  of 
deep  moral  pollution.  Gentle  and  even  facile  as  he 
was  by  nature,  God,  just  as  he  entered  the"  place,  had 
made  him  "a  living  stone."  With  quiet,  unshaken, 
unswerving  steadfastness,  under  acutest  difficulties, 
he  lived,  and  he  was  a  rock.  And  by  the  time  he 
left  the  academy — I  record  a  fact — vice  was  out  of 
fashion  there. 

But  if  the  stone  is  such,  what  will  the  structure 
be?  Is  it  not  a  glorious  thought,  the  possibility  for 
good,  for  virtue,  for  all  that  is  most  Christian,  when 
strength  meets  strength  and  life  meets  life  in  the 
mighty  fellowship  and  co-operation  of  holy  friend- 
ship, and  conscious  membership  one  of  another,  hand 
joining  hand  and  heart  joining  heart  in  the  broth- 
erhood of  the  faith  and  of  the  love  of  Jesus  Christ  ? 

No  living  stone  is  meant  to  lie  alone  by  the  road. 
It  is  made  what  it  is  in  order  to  be  built  with  others 
into  one,  in  a  union  of  heart,  of  life,  of  work,  full  at 
once  of  peace  and  power. 

This  is  no  unfit  time*  to  lay  a  solemn  stress  upon 
that  thought.    Sometimes  the  Lord's  teachings  are 
*  The  sermon  was  preached  February  4,  1900. 


230 


LIVING  STONES. 


borne  in  upon  us  with  an  even  awful  weight  by  His 
providence.  We  are  at  a  crisis  in  our  England's 
life  the  like  of  which,  I  think,  no  living  man  has 
seen;  for  who  now  lives  to  remember  the  Napo- 
leonic Wars?  It  is  a  dread  time;  but  it  is  a  time 
of  sublime  capacities  for  our  highest  good,  and  for 
the  genuine  glory  of  our  Motherland.  For  it  throws 
back  each  of  us  first  upon  himself  and  upon  his  God, 
and  then  binds  us  man  to  man  in  what  can  develop 
into  an  even  heroic  sympathy.  But  oh,  that  the  sons 
of  England  may  be  each,  in  this  highest  sense,  a  liv- 
ing stone,  and  all  stand  together  in  that  strength  and 
life,  for  God  and  man ! 

Remember,  as  we  close,  that  there  is  one  secret, 
and  only  one,  for  the  strength,  the  life,  and  the 
cohesion,  in  their  inmost  truth.  Ultimately,  that 
Secret  is  the  Lord  Christ,  the  Living  Stone — Christ, 
in  His  contact,  Spirit  to  spirit,  with  the  man,  and 
with  the  men,  who  come  to  Him.  From  the 
first,  even  to  the  last,  there  it  must  lie.  The 
Apostle  gives  it  to  us  here :  npds  Sv  irpocepx^voi — "to 
whom  coming" ;  with  a  coming,  as  the  tense  of  the 
Greek  participle  indicates,  which,  though  it  must 
have  a  beginning,  is  to  be  then  continual.  Tipo^pxii^voi 
— "coming,  and  coming,  and  coming  again";  for 
pardon,  for  purity,  for  living  power;  touching 


LIVING  STONES.  231 

(as  Antaeus  touched  his  mother  Earth,  and  was 
strong  again),  still  touching,  the  Living  Stone,  that 
we  also  may  be  always  "living  stones,"  results  of 
Him. 


XVI 


HEART  PURITY 

Preached  in  St.  Catherine's  College  Chapel,  Cambridge 
"Blessed  are  the  pure  in  heart." — Matt.  v.  8. 

You  will  expect  me  to  finish  the  verse,  and  to  recite 
that  supreme  promise  with  which  our  Lord  and 
Master  crowns  His  benediction :  "Blessed  are  the 
pure  in  heart,  for  they" — &n  afroi  they  distinctively, 
they  only — "shall  see  God."  And  I  have  now  thus 
recited  it,  giving  you  the  immortal  words  in  full. 
Yes, 

"Blessed  are  the  pure  in  heart, 
Who  God  Himself  shall  see; 
None  may  attain  by  other  art 
That  last  felicity." 

But  on  purpose  to-day  I  have  left  the  promise 
aside,  that  our  thoughts  may  be  given  the  more 
directly  and  the  more  undividedly  to  the  wonderful 
benediction  itself,  and  to  just  that  point  of  infinite 
import  in  it,  the  testimony  of  Jesus  Christ  to  the 
possibility  of  purity,  to  the  fact  that  it  can  be  said, 
and  by  His  sacred  lips,  of  a  veritable  human  being, 
"He  is  blessed,  for  he  is  pure  in  heart." 

232 


HEART  PURITY. 


233 


Wonderful  paradox,  in  that  Book  of  profound  and 
pregnant  paradoxes,  the  Bible.  In  the  Bible,  on  the 
one  hand,  we  find  the  human  heart — not  exceptional 
hearts,  but  the  heart,  the  great  abstract,  realized 
in  each  individual  instance — described  as  "deceitful 
above  all  things  and  desperately  diseased"  (for  so 
we  should  render  Jer.  xvii.  9).  The  Redeemer  Him- 
self affirms*  that  "out  of  the  heart  of  man,"  as  from 
their  very  fount  and  origin,  proceed  "evil  thoughts" 
and  all  that  is  impure.  Yet  in  this  same  Book,  upon 
the  other  hand,  we  read,  if  we  will  look  for  them, 
just  the  noblest  possible  utterances  about  the  moral 
greatness  for  which  man  was  made,  and  to  which, 
out  of  the  wreck  and  mire  of  his  fall,  he  can  again 
be  lifted.  The  voice  whose  kind,  truthful  sternness 
tells  us  all  we  can  bear  to  know  of  our  evil,  is  the 
same  voice  which  then  tells  us  that  we  can  be,  not 
in  dream  but  in  fact,  not  hereafter  only  but  here 
and  now,  filled  with  God's  own  pure  good.  We,  no 
beings  of  the  skies,  but  we  ourselves,  to-day,  may, 
really  may,  be  pure  in  heart. 

It  is  something  to  recollect  just  this.  If  that 
august  thing,  the  Christian  Gospel,  is  the  very  truth 
(and  it  is  either  the  very  truth  or  the  most  complete 
illusion  that  has  ever  mocked  the  world — it  is  possi- 
ble to  be  pure  in  heart.  That  simple  affirmation  can 
*  Matt.  xv.  19. 


234 


HEART  PURITY. 


be  as  new  life  itself  to  the  man  who,  longing  to  be 
clean  inwardly  has  well-nigh  given  up  the  thought, 
as  something  which  must  at  best  be  relegated  to  an 
unimaginable  future.  Aye,  and  if  there  be  a  man  so 
deeply  pitiable  that  he  has  never  really  yet  had  a 
longing  to  be  clean  within,  the  quiet  affirmation  of 
the  possibility  may  be  to  him,  too,  the  first  breath  of 
life.  It  may  generate  just  such  a  consciousness  of 
the  absolute  wretchedness  of  inward  evil  as  is  some- 
times evoked  by  the  mere  juxtaposition  with  it  of 
the  glory  and  the  repose  of  inward  good,  presented 
as  a  fact,  and  as  within  the  reach. 

Then  let  us  affirm  it  to  ourselves  again.  There  is 
such  a  thing,  according  to  the  Holy  Scriptures,  as 
heart  purity ;  that  is  to  say,  there  is  such  a  thing  as 
a  state  of  the  human  heart,  in  which  the  man,  the 
genuine  man,  the  person  of  the  present  day  and  of 
modern  circumstances,  entirely  loves  the  will  of  God, 
and  entirely  seeks  to  do  it.  There  is  such  a  thing 
as  a  human  heart  which,  habitually,  and  with  the 
joy  of  a  steadfast  sympathy,  not  only  approves  of 
virtue,  which  is  conscience,  but  rejoices  in  it,  as  at 
once  its  liberty  and  its  law ;  or  rather,  not  in  it  but  in 
Him,  of  whom  virtue  is  but  as  the  sunshine  to  the 
sun.  And  such  joy  and  sympathy  is  purity  of  heart. 
There  is  such  a  thing  as  will,  mind,  and  affection, 
united,  not  divided,  against  the  tempter  and  for  the 


HEART  PURITY. 


235 


will  of  God.  There  is  such  a  thing  as  an  internal 
No  to  the  siren-call  of  evil  which  is  entirely  true, 
for  it  is  but  the  other  side  of  a  Yes  which  "out  of  a 
pure  heart  fervently"  responds  to  the  call  of  Christ. 
There  is  such  a  thing,  in  very  truth,  not  in  legendary 
periods  but  to-day,  as  an  unreserved  choice  in  favor 
of  what  is  wholly  good ;  a  true  deliverance  from  that 
subtle  and  dreadful  willingness  to  be  tempted  which 
comes  of  a  lingering  relish  for  the  horrible  pleasant- 
ness of  sin;  a  response,  not  from  the  shifting  surface 
of  the  soul,  but  from  its  depths,  to  the  whisper  of 
the  eternal  Spirit.  Then  it  is  no  longer  as  if  the  will 
for  good  floated  and  drifted  on  the  top,  while  beneath 
there  was  a  deeper  and  a  more  secret  will,  desiring 
the  evil  after  all,  and  as  if  the  best  that  could  be 
done  was  to  crush  down,  as  it  were  to  batten  down, 
the  evil  under  the  good,  driving  it  only  deeper  in, 
and  inevitably  suggesting  the  thought  that  worse 
mischief  is  but  growing  and  festering  there  for  re- 
crudescence another  day.  No;  it  can  be  altogether 
otherwise.  Things  can  be  true  to  virtue  and  to  God 
at  those  "first  springs  of  thought  and  will"  where 
our  true  life  runs  up  and  out.  The  man,  the  real 
man,  can  take  his  place  among  the  blessed  ones 
who  are  pure  in  heart. 

Do  not  let  me  be  mistaken,  as  if  I  meant  to  say 
that  this  same  man  can  so  be  and  so  stand  as  to 


236 


HEART  PURITY. 


walk  out  into  the  open,  before  the  white  light  of 
eternal  Holiness,  and  say :  "Look  at  me ;  I  have  no 
sin."  The  dream,  under  that  awful  light,  of  an  ab- 
solute sinlessness  is,  in  itself,  a  moral  discord,  a  sin, 
a  failure  to  see  God  aright.  There  is  for  us  men,  to 
the  last,  no  standing  before  the  Throne  but  upon  our 
perfect  Redeemer's  merits,  no  immaculate  veil  but 
His  righteousness  cast  over  us,  no  "way  into  the 
holiest"  but  along  the  line  of  His  sprinkled  blood.* 
In  the  noble  words  put  by  the  poet  into  the  lips  of 
his  St.  Agnes,  the  robes  indeed  were  white,  and  the 
flames  was  clear  that  lit  the  nocturnal  pathway ;  yet 

"As  these  white  robes  are  soil'd  and  dark 

To  yonder  shining  ground, 
As  this  pale  taper's  earthly  spark 

To  yonder  argent  round ; 
So  shows  my  soul  before  the  Lamb, 

My  spirit  before  Thee ; 
Such  in  my  earthly  house  I  am 

To  that  I  hope  to  be." 

No,  "if  we  say  we  have  no  sin" — and  it  is  the 
beloved  Apostle  who  writes  this  "we"  and  "our- 
selves" and  "us" — "we  deceive  ourselves,  and  the 
truth  is  not  in  us."  "Enter  not  into  judgment  with 
Thy  servant,  O  Lord,  for  in  Thy  sight  shall  no  man 
living  be  justified."!  The  truth  of  heart  purity  will 
no  more  bear  than  any  other  great  spiritual  truth  to 
*  Heb.  x.  19.  1 1  John  i.  8,  Ps.  cxliii.  2. 


HEART  PURITY.  237 

run  alone,  irrespective  of  a  balance.  It  is  inevitable, 
as  the  whole  history  of  Christianity  tells  us,  and  its 
record  of  dogmatic  controversy  in  particular,  that 
when  a  side  of  truth,  however  great  a  side,  is  really 
treated  as  the  whole,  it  develops,  or  rather,  is  dis- 
torted, into  an  error.  But  that  principle  cuts,  of 
course,  both  ways,  and  sometimes  we  have  to  see  to  it 
that  the  cautionary  side  of  a  truth  does  not  usurp 
the  attention  due  to  the  glorious  positive  to  which 
it  stands  related.  So  it  is  with  heart  purity.  If 
I  do  not  mistake,  men  need  sometimes  to  say  to 
themselves  words  somewhat  like  these :  "It  is  quite 
true  that  the  subtle  mystery  of  sin  eludes  my  perfect 
comprehension.  It  is  true,  profoundly  true,  that  till 
we  see  the  Lord  as  He  is,  we  shall  never  be  fully  like 
Him ;  that  is,  we  shall  never  be  wholly  without  sin. 
It  must  needs  be,  then,  that,  to  the  last  breath,  I 
hide  myself  from  the  eternal  judgment  in  the  "Rock 
of  Ages,  cleft  for  me."  But  then,  I  will  not  forget, 
I  will  remember  with  joy  and  hope,  that,  in  a  sense 
relative  indeed,  yet  magnificently  true,  things  can  be 
so  revolutionized  in  me — yea,  to  the  depths,  that  my 
heart  can  be  genuinely  cleansed ;  my  will  can  be  hon- 
estly attuned  to  the  will  of  God ;  not  merely  my  as- 
sent, but  my  love,  not  only  my  moral  sense,  but  my 
heart,  can  go  out  to  that  now  beloved  will.  The 
condition  of  me,  a  sinner,  can  be  so  dealt  with  that 


23§ 


HEART  PURITY. 


the  contrast  with  the  troubled  past  shall  be  indefi- 
nitely large  and  bright.  Heart  purity,  in  a  sense  con- 
sonant with  all  penitent  humbleness,  yet  a  sense 
strong  and  genuine,  can  be  mine,  so  that  I  may  "walk 
worthy  of  the  Lord,  unto  all  pleasing,"  els  iraaav 
dpfricetav*  "all  meeting  of  His  will." 

Let  us  seek  a  large  vision  of  that  side  of  truth, 
that  wonderful  wealth  of  the  promises  of  purity. 

But  how  shall  this  thing  be?  Can  I  answer  better 
than  in  the  words  of  our  Lord,  spoken  on  an  occa- 
sion f  close  to  the  purpose  of  our  present  thoughts? 
"Who  then  can  be  saved?"  cried  the  amazed  Apos- 
tles. Shall  we  take  up  their  question,  and  give  it  one 
particular  line?  "Who  then  can  be  saved — from 
himself?  Who  then  can  be  saved,  deep  and  at  the 
center,  from  the  love  and  from  the  power  of  sin?" 
"The  things  which  are  impossible  with  men  are  pos- 
sible with  God." 

It  is  a  question  of  a  miracle;  the  requisite  is  the 
action  of  none  less  than  a  Divine  Person.  We  can, 
in  the  grace  and  mercy  of  God,  put  ourselves  in  the 
way  of  the  action,  even  as  helpless  sufferers  of  old, 
the  blind,  the  halt,  the  palsied,  the  bleeding,  put 
themselves  in  the  way  of  the  Man  of  Nazareth.  We 
can,  in  some  measure,  search  heart  and  life,  and 
really  tell  God  about  it.  Within  a  considerable 
*  Col.  i.  10.  t  Luke  xviii.  26,  27. 


HEART  PURITY. 


239 


range,  we  can  cut  ourselves  off  from  known  and  pre- 
ventable temptations.  We  can — we  know  it — com- 
mand our  eyes  not  to  look  on  evil,  not  to  trifle  with 
the  sensuous  till  it  sinks  into  the  sensual.  We  can 
read  what  God  has  said,  in  precept,  warning  and 
promise,  and  we  can  speak — the  more  absolutely  in 
simplicity  the  better — to  Him  in  prayer.  But  all 
these  are  but  fences  round  the  Secret,  or  avenues  up 
to  it.  The  Secret  is  the  Wonder- Worker  Himself, 
trusted,  welcomed  in,  summoned  by  the  soul,  to  be 
the  conquering  and  liberating  Presence  in  its  great 
need,  and  in  its  depths. 

We  shall  never  do  it  of  ourselves.  At  the  center 
of  things,  man  is  powerless  to  be  his  own  transfig- 
urer;  he  can  as  soon  run,  he  can  as  soon  soar,  from 
his  own  shadow.  But  his  Maker  and  his  Redeemer, 
as  man  yields  himself  to  God,  can  lift  him  from  that 
shadow  into  light,  and  set  him  free  indeed.  What 
is  needed  is — that  Person,  "dwelling  in  the  heart 
by  faith,"  so  to  make  His  chamber  clean.  "Blessed 
are  the  pure  in  heart."  Then,  "create  thou  in  me  a 
clean  heart,  O  God/' 

"Come  in,  O  come,  the  door  stands  open  now ; 
I  hear  Thy  voice;  my  Savior,  it  is  Thou." 


Date  Due 




3 

1 

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*****  *J5 



